Making a Tissue Donation Referral

Please note that this page is intend­ed for hos­pi­tal pro­fes­sion­als. If you reached this page by mis­take, please return to our home­page.

Noti­fy­ing Iowa Donor Net­work of Car­diac Death

1. Hos­pi­tal Noti­fies Iowa Donor Net­work of a Car­diac Death

Call IDN at 800.831.4131 with­in 1 hour of the patien­t’s death.

2. IDN Eval­u­ates Dona­tion Suitability

IDN will begin the screen­ing process for suit­abil­i­ty of dona­tion dur­ing the refer­ral call. At this time, the Dona­tion Spe­cial­ist will also deter­mine if the patient is a reg­is­tered donor. The Com­mon Screen­ing Ques­tions for Hos­pi­tal Deaths out­lines the most com­mon­ly asked ques­tions. Hav­ing famil­iar­i­ty with the patient and the patient’s med­ical his­to­ry pri­or to noti­fy­ing IDN of the patient’s death will stream­line the noti­fi­ca­tion process. The Dona­tion Spe­cial­ist may stop ask­ing ques­tions at any time dur­ing the ini­tial screen­ing process, if he/​she deter­mines that tis­sue dona­tion is not a pos­si­bil­i­ty for the patient. If IDN has remote access to the hospital’s elec­tron­ic med­ical records, IDN will review the patient’s chart. IDN will deter­mine dona­tion potential:

No Dona­tion Potential:

IDN will noti­fy you that the patient has no dona­tion potential.

Tis­sue and/​or Eye Dona­tion Potential:

The Dona­tion Spe­cial­ist will work with the refer­ring pro­fes­sion­al to deter­mine an appro­pri­ate time for IDN to con­tact the fam­i­ly about dona­tion. This ensures that all fam­i­lies are pro­vid­ed with the same infor­ma­tion about dona­tion so that they can make the dona­tion deci­sion that is right for them.

Do not ask fam­i­lies if they are inter­est­ed in dona­tion. In accor­dance with Cen­ter for Medicare and Med­ic­aid Con­di­tions of Par­tic­i­pa­tion for Hos­pi­tals, ​“the indi­vid­ual des­ig­nat­ed by the hos­pi­tal to ini­ti­ate the request to a fam­i­ly must be an organ pro­cure­ment representative…or a des­ig­nat­ed requestor.” ​“Indi­vid­u­als involved in a request for organ, tis­sue, and eye dona­tion must be for­mal­ly trained in the dona­tion request process.” IDN serves as your hospital’s des­ig­nat­ed requestor for organ, tis­sue, and eye donation.

3. Dona­tion Process

The Dona­tion Spe­cial­ist will com­plete autho­riza­tion (or dis­clo­sure for first per­son con­sent donors) paper­work with the donor fam­i­ly. The Dona­tion Spe­cial­ist will also con­duct a for­mal donor risk assess­ment inter­view. The inter­view con­tains per­ti­nent ques­tions about med­ical and behav­ioral his­to­ry to deter­mine the risk of dis­ease trans­mis­sion to a recip­i­ent. This infor­ma­tion is required by the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion and the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Tis­sue Banks.

IDN will coor­di­nate with the hos­pi­tal to begin cool­ing the body with­in 12 hours of death. If no cooled morgue is avail­able, IDN may request that hos­pi­tal staff place dou­ble-bagged ice on the body, refer to our Guide to Cool­ing the Body for instruc­tions. IDN may also request that rel­e­vant med­ical his­to­ry from the chart be faxed to IDN if IDN does not have remote access to the hos­pi­tal’s elec­tron­ic med­ical record.

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Com­mon­ly Asked Questions:

Q: What are the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria for tis­sue donation?

A: Cri­te­ria for tis­sue dona­tion eli­gi­bil­i­ty changes fre­quent­ly due to changes in tis­sue proces­sor require­ments or reg­u­la­tions. What may rule some­one out for dona­tion today, may not rule them out tomor­row. There­fore, noti­fy IDN of every death and let IDN deter­mine patient tis­sue dona­tion eligibility.

Q: When is a hos­pi­tal required to report a fetal death or stillbirth?

A: CMS rec­om­mends that hos­pi­tals report a fetal death or death of a preterm infant weigh­ing 1000 grams or more. If a death cer­tifi­cate is required for a preterm infant weigh­ing 1000 grams or more, the hos­pi­tal should report the death to the OPO. 

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Addi­tion­al Resources:

Basic Death Noti­fi­ca­tion Infor­ma­tion for Hos­pi­tal Staff

Col­lab­o­ra­tion with Funer­al Homes

Com­mon Screen­ing Ques­tions for Hos­pi­tal Deaths

Guide to Cool­ing the Body