Assessment, Monitoring, and Management of Brain-Dead Potential Organ Donors in Europe

With 34 donors per million population, Spain has impressed the international transplant community with the world's highest rate of organ donation (double the European average), short waiting lists, and reduced reliance on living donation. These data account for the World Health Organization's strategy for extending the so-called Spanish Model across the globe, and for the European Parliament's decision, on May 19, 2010, to incorporate some of the elements of the Spanish Model in its Action Plan on organ donation and transplantation. At present, there are a number of organ transplantation organizations in Europe, though no standardized protocol exists for all countries, and no standardized laws are in place. We describe the most successful model (the Spanish Model for organ donation) and describe in detail the most important recommendations of the 2009 Council of Europe's Guide to Safety and Quality Assurance for the Transplantation of Organs, Tissues and Cells. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York. All rights reserved.