Oversight of U.S. organ transplants flawed: report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The organization that oversees the U.S. organ transplant system often fails to detect or fix problems at the hospitals it is charged with supervising, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday.

When it does act, the United Network for Organ Sharing routinely keeps its findings secret, leaving patients and their families unaware of potential risks, including excessive death rates, the newspaper said.

The nonprofit agency has been contracted since 1986 by the federal government to oversee the transplant system. Since 2000, the organization has considered revoking the "good standing" of at least 15 transplant centers, but it has followed through just once, when it revoked certification in March for St. Vincent Medical Center in a Los Angeles, according to the Times.

Officials at the network were not immediately available for comment, but executive director Walter Graham told the newspaper that the problems were "hurting public trust" and the agency hopes to make changes.

The network has never recommended closing a transplant program and has been reluctant to censure hospitals, the report said.

"It seems like (the network) is often a day late and a dollar short," said Dr. Mark Fox, former chairman of the group's ethics committee.

St. Vincent Medical Center had arranged for a liver transplant candidate to jump ahead of dozens of others in line for an organ.

In another instance, the newspaper said United Network for Organ Sharing was aware by 2002 of unacceptably high death rates for the kidney transplant program at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas, but four years passed before the regulator performed its own inspection.

The organization also failed to investigate health maintenance organization Kaiser Permanente's new kidney program in San Francisco, even though statistics showed twice as many patients had died awaiting transplants as had received them, the newspaper said.

The group launched an investigation of Kaiser's program in May, after the Los Angeles Times had detailed the failings.