The Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD) and transplant software company MedSleuth have announced a US partnership launched to increase access to lifesaving kidney transplants. The organisations have consolidated their two paired kidney donation software platforms into one programme, named Kidney Matchgrid, which they state will significantly expand the pool for matching living kidney donors with transplant candidates nationwide.
According to a press release from MedSleuth, in the USA, family, friends and other loved ones may offer to donate a kidney to a person in need of a transplant. While these willing donors are not always compatible with their intended recipient, a process called paired donation allows incompatible donor-recipient pairs to be matched to each other. Paired donation can result in a kidney exchange, in which two incompatible donor-recipient pairs are matched to each other, or a kidney chain, in which a willing donor gives a kidney to a stranger and starts a “domino effect” of kidney donations.
Before launching the new collaboration, MedSleuth and APKD operated independently to provide paired donation services and software to match living kidney donors with recipients. APKD focused on kidney exchanges between transplant centres, while MedSleuth focused on kidney exchanges within a single transplant centre that was supported by software to improve living donor intake. With this new partnership, MedSleuth and APKD aim to provide transplant centres with access to a larger pool of patient data, from which they can choose between internal, regional or national kidney exchanges.
To help in this goal, the partnered companies have developed Kidney Matchgrid, a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant, service organisation control (SOC) 2 Type II certified software powered by a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm, which they intend to be used to better enable transplant centres to deliver both process efficiency and access to more transplants for their hard-to-match transplant candidates and living kidney donors.
Transplant centres working with APKD and MedSleuth will upload information about their donor-recipient pairs and non-directed living donors to Kidney Matchgrid, from which transplant centres and APKD will perform match runs as frequently as needed. MedSleuth will support the partnership by overseeing the sales and marketing of Kidney Matchgrid for all participating transplant centres, allowing APKD to focus on helping transplant centres deliver kidney exchange and first-rate care to the living donors who make kidney exchange possible. In addition to Kidney Matchgrid, the expanded transplant centre network will continue receiving access to services and software provided independently by MedSleuth and APKD.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of APKD, Michael A Rees, commented on the new partnership, saying: “This partnership is an example of what can be achieved when organisations combine their strengths to better serve patients and medical teams across the transplant community. Bringing together the transparent APKD matching process and the straightforward business practices of MedSleuth puts transplant centres first, giving them tools to make the best choices for the patients they serve.”
Ben Nightingale, chief operating officer (COO) of MedSleuth, also shared his thoughts. “This partnership enables us to channel our energy into delivering exceptional customer service and outcomes for transplant centres from the first contact and continuing with every match run coordinated by our partners at APKD. We look forward to working with transplant centres nationwide to further living donor transplant effectiveness and save more lives.”
