Find in Library

Background: A need was felt to have a simple scoring system for the objective assessment of hospitals for preparedness for donation after brain death (DBD). Materials and Methods: Eighteen tertiary care transplanting hospitals in India were scored on 20 parameters (Seth-Donation of Organs and Tissues [S-DOT] score). An independent observer scored each parameter as 2, 1, or 0 with a maximum score of 40. The loopholes in organ donation (OD) were addressed by monthly interactions and hospitals re-assessed at 6 months by the same observer. Statistical analysis was performed with the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. Results: The median S-DOT score at baseline was 13.5 (range 3–33). On correlating baseline score with donations over preceding 4 years, 1 hospital with score >30 (good) had 17 donations, 8 hospitals with a score 15–29 (satisfactory) had 19 donations, whereas none of the 9 hospitals with score <15 (unsatisfactory) had a donation. After 6 months, S-DOT score improved for all hospitals to a median of 23.5 (range 4–37) with a median increase of 6.7 (range 1–22), P < 0.001. Four hospitals with a score >30 had 6 donations, 9 hospitals with score 15–29 had 7 donations whereas none of the 5 hospitals with score <15 had any donation. Conclusion: S-DOT score may be a useful tool for the objective assessment and improvement of hospitals on best practices in DBD. A score of >30 was frequently associated with OD, while a score <15 could consistently identify hospitals that did not have any donation.