Shows how trained volunteers can help transplant centers turn interest in living donation into completed transplants

NEW YORK, October 28, 2026 – The Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) and Northwell Health presented KTC’s living donor program model to transplant centers participating in the CMS Innovation Center’s Increasing Organ Transplant Access (IOTA) Model at the September IOTA office hour. KTC Chairman Andrew D. Howard, MD, FACP, showed how volunteers from a patient’s own community can be trained to help find potential living donors and support them through the donation process.

The session focused on putting KTC’s Living Donor Program Enhancement Framework into practice. The Framework gives centers a structured model and training materials they can adapt to their own programs, with dedicated transplant coordinator staff preparing volunteers to help patients and prospective donors.

Nora Brady, Vice President of the Northwell Health Transplant Institute, discussed Northwell’s three-year demonstration project piloting the Framework with KTC, Staten Island PPS and Kidneys for Communities.

“Transplant centers have an opportunity to reach more potential living donors through the people who know a patient best,” said Dr. Howard. “With training and ongoing guidance, those volunteers can help patients share their story and help willing donors stay engaged through evaluation and surgery. That is the approach we want to make available to more centers.”

Under the Framework, a dedicated transplant coordinator trains volunteer facilitators from the patient’s own network, such as friends, family, faith leaders and coworkers. The first three of its six phases help the patient find a donor. The last three support that donor through evaluation and preparation for surgery, with facilitators helping with scheduling, paperwork and logistics along the way.

The Framework draws on published research. At Johns Hopkins University, participation in the Live Donor Champion program was associated with a 5.5-fold increase in the likelihood of having at least one potential donor come forward, compared with a matched control group. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a program that paired advocacy training for patients’ friends and family with non-clinical navigators who guided potential donors through evaluation was associated with a ninefold increase in donor screenings and a sevenfold increase in approved donors.

The approach supports the IOTA Model’s goals of identifying more living donors, improving care coordination and expanding access to transplantation. Within the Framework, coordinators and volunteers provide only non-clinical support, and transplant centers retain all medical evaluation, eligibility decisions and clinical care.

KTC makes its training and operational materials available to interested centers, including patient intake tools, volunteer messaging guides, outreach templates and donor support materials.

View the presentation here. Centers can request materials at info@kidneytransplantcollaborative.com.

About the Kidney Transplant Collaborative

The Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) is dedicated to increasing kidney transplants and removing financial and logistical barriers for kidney patients, donors and their families. KTC focuses on increasing the number of living donor transplants in the United States through policy advocacy, education and community organizing. Learn more at www.kidneytransplantcollaborative.com.