IMPETRO: The IMProvEmentTs in Live ORgan DOnations project in South Auckland

Michael Lam Po Tang¹, Mark Marshall¹, Denise Beechey¹

¹Renal Services, Counties Manukau DHB, Auckland, New Zealand

Counties Manukau DHB serves South Auckland with a high prevalence of indigenous peoples (NZ Maori & Pasifika). This group have a disproportionately higher rate of End Stage Kidney Disease and lower rate of kidney transplantation, unexplained by medical co-morbidities. They also have greater social deprivation and lower literacy skills. Barriers to transplantation/organ donation include: access to understandable information, lack of cultural skills in health providers, over-emphasis on dialysis decision-making, and insufficient resources/operational support for work-up.

The IMPETRO Study is a joint venture with the Kidney Society Auckland, a patient support group. It aims to increase live kidney donation rates in South Auckland over 3 years using a multi-faceted health service delivery improvement project to educate, encourage and facilitate live donation.

Interventions include:

Development of culturally- and health literacy-appropriate educational resources on live kidney transplantation and organ donation.

Local implementation of a “Home & Kidney first” policy to focus on transplantation (& home therapies) as the treatment of choice.

Formation of culture-specific health educators aimed at building individual and whaanau health literacy skills.

Development of a community engagement framework aimed at community/religious leaders as well as specific communities through educational sessions.

Development of an educational programme aimed at primary care providers to enable them to support patients and donors.

Year 1(2013) of the project involves the development of the resources listed above with year 2 and 3 being the implementation period.

The primary outcome is the number of potential live kidney donors who offer, and the main secondary outcome, the number who convert into successful donation. Subgroup analyses of outcomes in indigenous groups will be conducted. Initial results are expected in late 2014