IG15210 - Software for Transnational Kidney Exchange Programmes

Kidney Exchange Programmes (KEPs) greatly enhance living kidney donation by allowing a patient to “swap” their willing but incompatible donor with that of another patient who is in a similar position, so that each patient concerned can receive a compatible kidney. Non-directed (altruistic) donors can also benefit multiple patients by triggering “chains” of transplants. Many European countries operate successful KEPs, and the ENCKEP COST Action has undertaken foundational work in the development of transnational European collaboration on KEPs, which can improve outcomes through countries pooling their resources. However, a software infrastructure that will allow European countries to easily develop and operate new transnational KEPs is lacking. This project will deliver such a software tool, KEP-SOFT, which will be ready to be deployed as part of an actual transnational KEP.

This will be done by building on a prototype software product developed as part of ENCKEP, and by drawing on the existing expertise that has been accumulated within ENCKEP, which includes clinicians, policy makers, optimisation experts, computer scientists, mathematicians and economists. KEP-SOFT will be made freely available as a resource to the European transplantation community, and to National Transplantation Organisations (NTOs) in particular. Importantly, we have direct communication channels to ensure that NTOs can benefit from this work and deploy the software, as many ENCKEP participants are senior clinicians (e.g., nephrologists, kidney surgeons) and/or policy makers (e.g., directors) in NTOs, and this range of expertise is reflected in the composition of the CIG Team.