Congress to investigate Richmond organ transplant group again

Congress has launched a second investigation into the Richmond nonprofit that oversees organ transplants in the United States.

House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Last week, the government announced it would launch an inquiry into the Unified Network for Organ Sharing to ensure proper implementation of new laws that will change the governing structure of organ transplants.

The new investigation is the latest government action on UNOS, which oversees a network of 56 organ procurement groups and 248 transplant centers. UNOS has long faced criticism over its technology, organ losses, and network member failures. In 2022, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing and announced its findings.

UNOS is cooperating with the House committee, a spokesperson for the nonprofit organization said Friday. In addition to the new investigation, two U.S. senators are calling on UNOS to release further details about the data breach that occurred last year.

Late Friday, as its contract with UNOS expires, UNOS and the federal health agency announced they had entered into a short-term agreement for the nonprofit to continue operating the network.

The House investigation is being led by three Republicans and three Democrats, including Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-9th), who represents the southwestern part of the state. The government plans to consider the operation of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).

Lawmakers also say they want to ensure proper implementation of a new law that rewrites organ transplants in the United States. UNOS has held the sole federal contract to operate this network since 1986. However, under legislation signed by President Joe Biden last year, the contract would be split up and UNOS would have to bid on more than one contract.

Earlier this year, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal agency that oversees UNOS, was not following the new law and would put too much power in the hands of UNOS.

The inquiry calls for a fair and competitive contracting process that promotes data transparency, patient safety and system security, representatives said.

Errors and inefficiencies in organ transplants can have deadly consequences, they write. 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ donation, but many of the organs that can be recovered from dying patients are never recovered.

“UNOS is the only organization that administers OPTN, and during that time, worrying reports have emerged that the organ donation system has become unsafe, unfair, self-serving and retaliatory.” representatives said.

In 2022, members of the Senate Finance Committee shared findings, including that approximately one in four kidneys recovered from dying patients never return to the poor person’s body.

unos new contractIt will take effect Saturday and last at least nine months. The health department can extend it two more six-month periods.

Neither the Ministry of Health nor UNOS disclosed the amount to be paid to UNOS, but UNOS said the change in costs would be minimal.

Two U.S. senators, Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), asked for details About the UNOS data breach in November that exposed 1.5 million patient records.

Social security numbers, dates of birth and medical treatment information were released, UNOS said. The data was accessible to users within the transplant community, but not to the general public.

The senators asked how UNOS identified the breach, the root cause, how many patients were affected, how many users had access to sensitive information, and other questions.

“This mishandling error is yet another example of UNOS’ failure to operate critical technologies that support the organ procurement and transplant network,” they wrote.

A UNOS spokesperson said the organization is cooperating with the senators’ request.

A 2021 report by the US Digital Service, an outpost of the White House, claimed that UNOS technology was substandard. The report said core systems were “vulnerable” and system uptime was “insufficient.”

The 42-member board that oversees UNOS also oversees the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, a public-private partnership that connects all organ collection groups and transplant hospitals in the network. UNOS He has been leading the network since 1986.

Critics of UNOS argue that a single board creates a conflict of interest in which those who should be looking out for patients’ best interests instead look out for UNOS’s best interests. .

“The establishment of a new, independent UNOS Board of Directors will eliminate conflicts of interest in the governance of OPTN,” UNOS said on its website.

UNOS elected seven people as its committee members. corporate board of directors. Members include five transplant and medical experts, one data security expert, and one enterprise development expert. Among the seven is Jake Kouns, who founded a Richmond-based company called Risk Based Security, which provides intelligence on vulnerabilities and data breaches. The new board will take effect Saturday.

Members of the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network recently elected 24 new members to the 42-member Governance Committee. The separation of OPTN and the board that oversees the Richmond-based Organ Sharing Coalition Network was mentioned in a recent letter to OPTN from Suma Nair, deputy administrator of the Office of Health Systems.

Patient groups were concerned that current UNOS leadership would be allowed to continue in charge, arguing that doing so would prevent meaningful change. The former UNOS board “opposed reform, retaliated against whistleblowers, and placed the interests of a single contractor over the interests of patients,” the agency said in a letter to Congress.

In December, Grassley told members of Congress that HRSA was ignoring laws designed to take power away from UNOS.

It took a long time for UNOS to split the two boards. HRSA first directed UNOS to separate in 2018, but UNOS resisted the order. Greg Segal saidHe leads a nonprofit called Organize, which aims to improve the transplant process.