Review of Organ Donation and Transplantation: A Healthcare Supply Chain Management Perspective

Organ donation is one of the most valuable gifts a person could give to another person in need. Hence, any technique developed to increase the use of donated organs should be properly used in order to prevent the wastage of organs due to transplant rejections and the organ reaching the concerned person only after the cold ischemic time. Organ donation, sharing and transplantation have been in practice since the first transplant of a kidney that took place in the year 1954. Many changes in the technology, allocation and policies have occurred in this field of organ transplantation in order to improve in terms of the quality given to the patients as well as the efficiency involved from the perspective of the organizations. The authors attempt to consolidate the organ donations and transplantations that has happened in the past decade in the international and national arena available from International Registry on Organ Donation and Transplantation (IRODaT), and review studies on supply chain management of organ transplantation. The methodology of classifying perspectives is initially identified from the existing literature and done for separate typologies like donations, organs, countries, methods, solution, approach etc.