Over the last decade, organ preservation has gone from hardware store coolers filled with ice to high-tech preservation systems that have been shown to significantly increase organ viability and patient survival rates. Now, donor organs can be transported more safely and across longer distances, connecting more patients with life-saving transplants.
But preservation hardware isn’t the only logistical barrier in the transplant ecosystem. As air transportation for organs becomes more common, both in response to tech advancements and changing federal guidelines, the industry needs tools that synchronize communication between dispersed teams and can keep pace with air transport. To sustain this progress, we must prioritize tools that provide clinicians with real-time data on the condition of the organ throughout its journey. By closing this information gap, we empower transplant teams to make more informed clinical decisions, ensuring that every gift reaches the patient in the best possible condition.
New technology, new models
A growing number of donor organs are flown instead of driven to their destination. Advanced preservation is one reason for this change because it allows for increased ischemic time, but the push toward air transportation also comes from changing national transplant allocation systems and even federal guidelines.
For example, the allocation systems for each major organ are currently undergoing a phased transition to a continuous distribution model that prioritizes getting organs to the sickest patient, no matter the distance. Recognizing that private and charter flights can significantly increase transplant costs, there has been an effort at the federal government level to develop best practices for transporting organs in passenger cabins on commercial airlines, which may signal future administrative interest.
Because allocation systems are moving toward models that are increasingly distance-agnostic, commercial airline transportation is now the most cost-effective and quickest way to move donor organs. Organ preservation must continue to evolve in this new landscape, taking into account practical hardware considerations, including protecting organs from air pressure fluctuations, and portability. The success of these models also depends on rapid deployment of the devices themselves, ensuring that advanced preservation hardware is available at the donor site the moment it is needed.
Simplifying communication
While air transport allows us to reach more patients, it also complicates a communication process that has historically been fragmented. We need tools that bridge these gaps, providing live updates and logistics tracking to transplant teams. Doing so doesn’t just eliminate confusion, it reduces the stress placed on clinicians to check in, ask for status updates, and wonder if an organ is going to arrive in time. When clinicians are already stretched thin, the granular oversight required for organ preservation imposes a significant cognitive load that further taxes their limited bandwidth. By providing a single, GPS-linked source of truth that synchronizes procurement and transplant teams, we can replace stress with precision.
Precise monitoring also improves the likelihood of organ viability. The reality of modern logistics is that many organs need to travel unaccompanied to save on costs and move through the system quickly, turning preservation systems into virtual couriers. If a temperature spike occurs in a cargo hold, an automated alert can trigger an immediate intervention at the next waypoint. Even when a person is accompanying the organ, they can’t necessarily detect a temperature shift or a pressure change inside a sealed canister. They need the same live data to know when to intervene.
Capturing insights for future discoveries
Real-time tracking and streamlined communication help solve the immediate logistical problems in our industry, but their true value extends beyond transit monitoring. The same platforms and technology that allow teams to know what’s going on inside a preservation system hundreds of miles away can also provide data for digital registries, centralized databases that aggregate clinical and logistical data from every mission. This transition from active tracking to longitudinal reporting has the potential to help us build a scalable digital infrastructure that allows transplant centers to manage higher volumes with greater precision and less administrative overhead.
However, this digital infrastructure must also bridge a critical gap in patient education, as many families currently have no visibility into whether their organ is being protected by advanced preservation technology or a standard ice chest. By requiring clear documentation of the specific preservation methods used and educating patients about these choices, we can move toward a model of true informed consent.
By capturing the granular data of the journey and pairing it with post-operative survival rates, we are able to identify systemic trends, benchmark performance across centers, and understand the precise conditions that lead to the best patient outcomes. Every successfully tracked mission becomes a data point that helps ensure the success of the next, allowing us to replace clinical intuition with a standardized, evidence-based roadmap for every organ type.
Photo: eternalcreative, Getty Images
Dr. Lisa Anderson is the President & Co-Founder of Paragonix Technologies, Inc. Dr. Anderson co-founded Paragonix with a goal to create a new standard of care for organ preservation and transport that would improve patient outcomes worldwide. The result of this initiative has been the development of novel medical devices which provide a sterile, temperature and pressure-controlled environment for organs traveling between operating rooms. Paragonix Technologies has established itself as a global leader in donor organ preservation and procurement services and is now utilized at over 200 Transplant Centers across the globe. In September 2024, Paragonix was acquired by multinational medical device leader, Getinge, and Dr. Anderson now serves as the President of the Getinge Transplant Care business.
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