In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers looked at the impact of direct airline flights on kidney sharing and transplantation. Based on the research of Texas McCombs Accounting Assistant Professor Ronghuo Zheng.
Two years ago, a donated kidney shipped from Florida to a recipient in North Carolina missed a flight connection in Atlanta. When the kidney finally arrived at the transplant center, surgeons had just 46 minutes to spare, almost rendering the organ unusable.
Each year in the U.S., nearly 5,000 people die waiting for a kidney transplant, with wait time heavily dependent on where a person lives. At the same time, an estimated 3,500 donated kidneys are discarded because they’re no longer viable. This troubling imbalance of organ scarcity and massive wastefulness is tied in part to limited organ sharing across the country. Current policies prioritize local matching, and surgeons are often reluctant to accept donated kidneys that require multiple flight connections.
Inefficient organ sharing can also have a ripple effect. Surgeons waiting for a kidney that misses a flight connection and becomes unviable could have been operating on another patient. In this case, patients, the surgeon, and the transplant center all lose.
Policymakers have tried to address these complex problems by eliminating the current system’s regional boundaries, allowing organs to travel further. “But geographical distance isn’t the only thing that matters,” says Ronghuo Zheng, a Texas McCombs assistant professor of accounting.
Read the full article on Texas McCombs Big Ideas.
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