Health Services
Organ Recovery - The Process
Organ Recovery Home 
Through the UNOS Organ Center, organ donors are matched to waiting recipients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Through its policies, UNOS ensures that all patients have a fair chance of receiving the organ they need regardless of age, sex, race, lifestyle, religion and financial or social status.
UNOS members include every transplant program, organ procurement organization and tissue typing laboratory in the United States. Policies governing the transplant community are developed by the UNOS membership through a series of regional meetings, deliberations at the National Committee level and final approval by a 40-member board of directors, comprised of medical professionals, transplant recipients and donor family members.
After the family graciously consents to organ and tissue donation, an extensive medical evaluation takes place. This evaluation determines which organs and tissues are suitable for transplantation and ensures the medical transplant community and recipients that these organs are healthy and without communicable disease.
Initially information about the organ recipient is entered into the UNOS computer. Information such as date and time listed, name, height, weight, blood type, social security number, transplant center telephone number for referrals, number of transplants the patient has received and status are entered. A patient's status is his or her medical status, which is assigned according to the state of end-stage organ failure which determines urgency of the need for transplant for each individual patient.
