A Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario-led study on the process of organ donation has found that current standards are acceptable, in regards to wait times after death.
The current standard is to wait 5 minutes after the heart stops before determining death and proceeding to organ donation.
But Dr. Sonny Dhanani found that the classic 'flatline' in death is not so straightforward.
During the dying process, study lead and CHEO’s chief of critical care explained that cardiac activity often stops and re-starts several times before it stops completely.
To dispel any fears of reanimating the dead, the investigator with the CHEO research Institute affirmed that no one regained sustained circulation or consciousness.
"To do this, we had to go into ICUs and monitor people as they were dying. This is a very personal experience. And here we were collecting data, sending it to a server, downloading it and having people review the vital signs... how things stopped and if they restarted. "explained Dr. Dhanani.
He said it was difficult to ask families to take part in the study, but turned to Heather Talbot, a woman whose son died in a car accident and became an organ donor.
Talbot joined the study and provided feedback from a family's perspective, contributing ideas on how to appropriately approach families of dying patients. Her ability to reflect on her experiences and apply them to the study was pivotal for the project’s success. Her contributions helped achieve a family consent rate of 93% and dampened the team’s fears of overstepping boundaries.
Dr. Dhanani explained that the research is proof that families can trust that when death is determined, it is safe to begin the organ donation process, and data from the study can now be used to inform policy and guidelines for determining death for organ donation both nationally and internationally.
