The Hospital Partners Study is conducted by the Research & Planning Group on behalf of many OPOs around the United States. This article provides some national comparative data gleaned from 2018-2019 from 8 participating OPOs and from 2016-2017 from 20 participating OPOs.
National Findings
The following statistics reflect comparable satisfaction data from the study. Please contact us if you would like additional comparable data or you would like to review the survey instrument.
Physician Satisfaction – 2018-2019
Hospital Staff Satisfaction – 2018-2019
OPOs Included in 2018-2019 Cycle
The OPOs who contributed data to the 2018-2019 data set include:
- Carolina Donor Services
- Donor Network of Arizona
- DonorConnect
- Legacy of Hope
- LifeShare of Oklahoma
- LifeSource
- Midwest Transplant Network
- Nevada Donor Network
Physician Satisfaction – 2016-2017
Hospital Staff Satisfaction – 2016-2017
OPOs Included in 2016-2017 Cycle
OPOs who contributed data to the 2016-2017 set include:
- Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency
- Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE)
- Donor Alliance
- Donor Network of Arizona
- Gift of Life Michigan
- Iowa Donor Network
- LifeBanc
- LifeCenter Organ Donor Network
- Lifeline of Ohio Organ Procurement Agency
- LifeShare Transplant Donor Services of Oklahoma
- Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland
- Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency (LOPA)
- Mid-America Transplant
- Midwest Transplant Network
- Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency (MORA)
- Nebraska Organ Recovery System
- New Mexico Donor Services
- Sierra Donor Services
- Tennessee Donor Services
Method
The Hospital Partners Study was conducted via Telephone In-Depth Interviews using a random or purposive sample of physicians and hospital staff (nurses as well as roles including chaplains, social workers and administrators) who work with an OPO on organ and tissue donation cases at a hospital within their DSA. Interviews were scheduled for 15-20 minute blocks and administered using a standardized survey instrument with a mixture of qualitative and quantitative lines of questioning as well as structured probes. (For some OPOs, only physicians were surveyed.)
Each OPO supplied a list of donation-side hospital partners who are eligible to participate and notified them in advance that they might receive a call from the research team. This letter also contained instructions on how hospital partners could opt in or out of the study. In most studies, physicians and hospital staff were provided with an honorarium for their participation.
Population and Sampling
The population for the Hospital Partners Study is defined as those who regularly work with their local OPO at a donation hospital and who have had at least three encounters in the last two years.
The sample frame for this study includes a list provided by the OPO to the research team of all eligible hospital partners. The research team utilized a purposive approach to interview a representative sample of partners with quotas set from standardized donation activity data.
Because some OPOs do not include hospitals that are lower in volume, comparative data only include those partners who were from hospitals designed “A” or higher.
Limitations
These national comparisons come from a self-selected group of Organ Procurement Organizations who have expressed an interest in having a third party measure donation-side hospital partner satisfaction. The findings are provided for informational purposes and should not be said to be projectable to the entire industry nor representative of all OPOs.
The sample for this study is nonprobability-based and cannot be projected to the entire population of hospital partners for any individual OPO.
The sample size for each OPO tends to be small, and for many OPOs, only 20-30 physicians and 30-40 hospital staff were interviewed.
Because individual OPOs determined which hospital partners were eligible to be surveyed, there is potential for bias. While the research team advised each OPO to include all eligible hospital partners and allowed volunteers not on the list if they met eligibility criteria, it is possible that some partners were excluded due to lack of experience or previously known lack of interest.
The data are reflective of a holistic assessment of what hospital partners remember during their total experience with an OPO and not a specific case. Some partners have been working with individual OPOs for many years and their perceptions have been shaped over a lengthy relationship; others have only worked with their particular OPO for a short time and their perceptions have been shaped by recent experience. The sample size was not sufficient to examine length of relationship as an influencer upon satisfaction.
For More Information
If you would like to know more about this study, please contact us.