Is it a violation of confidentiality for a hospital to permit the OPO to review patient death records?
A42. No. The Federal statute and implementing regulation require the hospital to work cooperatively with OPOs, tissue, and eye banks in performing death record reviews. Although the regulation is not explicit in establishing that death record reviews do not violate patient confidentiality, it is implicit in the law. The goal of the hospital and OPO conditions of participation is to increase organ donation. It is implicit that this can be accomplished by the exchange of information between hospitals and OPOs, through death record review, to facilitate and/or increase organ donation. However, both the hospital and OPO regulations require that hospitals and OPOs have procedures for ensuring the confidentiality of patient records and information. See 42 C.F.R. 482.24(b)(3) and 42 C.F.R. 486.306(o). Therefore although patient records and information are exchanged between the hospitals and OPOs to facilitate and increase organ donation, they must ensure the information remains confidential a
