Family Medicine Research Day

Background: Over 100,000 people are currently waiting for organ transplants in the United States, and tragically 17 people die each day while waiting for an organ. Efforts to reduce these deaths have been made at many levels along the donation pathway, from increasing organ donation registration, to improving surgical techniques that optimize organ procurement. Objective: Our goal is to implement interventions in Primary Care to reduce deaths of those awaiting transplant. Methods: The first step will be a review of the existing literature on transplant-related interventions in the Primary Care setting. Multiple databases including PubMed, MedLine, and Google Scholar will be systematically searched. Results of these efforts will be synthesized and presented in a poster for the UC San Diego Family Medicine Department Research symposium. Results: Preliminary results show a wealth of data on a wide spectrum of efforts to reduce deaths on the transplant list. However, as searches are narrowed to include only Primary Care interventions, the number of applicable, high-quality studies decreases. There have been at least two published literature reviews on this subject and both conclude that although the data are limited, some interventions may confer benefit. Conclusions: While the data on this subject appears limited, it provides enough guidance to inform the development of a Primary Care intervention. The existing evidence and our conclusions therefrom will be documented in this poster. The limited available data highlights the opportunity that exists to study, and publish on, potential future interventions in our clinic.