Korean J Transplant.  2023 Nov;37(Suppl 1):S237. 10.4285/ATW2023.F-8317.

Manpower, task performance and analysis of organ transplantation coordinators in Korea

• Ju MK
• Son SY
• Hong SH
• Park J
• Kim HS
• Kim S

• KMID: 2551866
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4285/ATW2023.F-8317

Abstract

Background
Since organ transplantation began in Korea, the number and level of transplants have been developing day by day. Accordingly, the task performance that organ transplant coordinators must handle have increased to coordinate complex organ donation and transplantation processes, and as direct nursing tasks such as brain-dead patient evaluation and family counseling and administrative tasks have become more diverse due to changes in laws and regulations, the professionalism and difficulty of the work has increased. The demand for coordinators with expertise in the field is increasing. However, due to the lack of a systematic and standardized curriculum to strengthen the capabilities of organ transplant coordinators, work has become difficult in clinical practice, and turnover rates have recently been increasing. Accordingly, in order to strengthen efficient work coordination ability and expertise, an attempt was made to analyze the human resources status and work of organ transplant coordinators currently working in the brain-dead care and organ transplant environment in Korea.
Methods
This study is a descriptive research study to determine the human resources status of organ transplant coordinators and the importance, difficulty, and frequency of tasks. It was developed using the Developing A Curriculum (DACUM) method to analyze the human resources status and job duties of organ transplant coordinators. Using a questionnaire, all organ transplant coordinators were surveyed as a population and those who responded to the online survey were analyzed to analyze the coordinator's manpower status, importance and difficulty of the job, and frequency of performance.
Results
A total of 51 people participated in the survey conducted from July 7 to August 4, with 5.9% (3 people) being male and 94.1% (48 people) being female. The average age was 40.45 years (range, 28–59 years), and most people had graduate school or higher (49.0%), and the working institutions were HOPO (74.5%), transplant medical institution (17.6%), and Korea Organ Donation Center (7.8%). The average age was 40.45 years (range, 28–59 years), and most people had graduate school or higher (49.0%), and the working institutions were HOPO (74.5%), transplant medical institution (17.6%), and Korea Organ Donation Center (7.8%). The average working experience of coordinators was 94.20 months, approximately 7 years and 10 months (range, 3–291 months), and 90.2% said they worked exclusively as coordinators. Regarding the job importance of recipient management, "consultation with transplant doctors when selecting brain death transplant recipients" scored 3.96 points and "discharge education and information provision" scored 3.93 points. In donor management, "family counseling of the presumed brain death" and "confirmation of the consent of the brain death donor family" scored 4 points, and "confirmation of medical condition and information of the presumed brain death" and "physical assessment of the presumed brain death" scored 3.97 points, the next highest importance score. Regarding the job difficulty of recipient management, the difficulty score was high with 3.20 points for "evaluation of the recipient's medical condition" and "adjustment of surgery preparation for brain death transplant recipients," and 3.07 points for "adjustment of pretransplant examination progress" and "consultation with transplant doctors when selecting brain death transplant recipients." In donor management, "brainer transfer" scored 3.37 points, and "family counseling of the presumed brain death" and "coordination of brain death hospitals and transportation-related tasks" scored 3.34 points.
Conclusions
The results of this study will serve as basic data for manualization of work and basic data for the standard curriculum to help strengthen the coordinator's expertise to prevent manpower exhaustion.