How Canadian Blood Services supports research to advance the field of organ and tissue donation and transplantation

National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week (NOTDAW) is recognized in Canada each April as a way to highlight what donation and transplantation makes possible and serve as an inspiration for Canadians to have life-saving conversations with those closest to them.  In 2018, Green Shirt Day was introduced to honour the decision to say yes to organ and tissue donation and acknowledge the #LoganBouletEffect – a movement resulting in 150,000 Canadians registering intent to be donors through provincial registries.

As raising awareness of donation is vital to matching donors and recipients, so too is the continued pursuit of research crucial to advancement of the field of organ and tissue donation and transplantation and related clinical practice.

Canadian Blood Services Research Ethics Program has supported, and continues to support, many studies that have been ethically approved through the provision of data and/or biologics to generate evidence that can improve the field of organ and/or tissue donation and transplantation.

Research is also supported through Canadian Blood Services competitive funding programs. Since 2018, Canadian Blood Services competitive funding programs have granted over $800,000 to nine studies that directly focus on generating evidence relevant to organs and/or tissues, including those that can inform better matching, better recipient outcomes, better understanding and resources for healthcare providers’ experiences, and better clinical practice.

One example of a research project that leveraged this competitive funding to produce valuable, evidence-informed, educational resources for Canada’s transfusion community is the Addressing racial disparity in blood, stem cell, and organ and tissue donor pools | Canadian Blood Services project led by principal investigator, Dr. Warren Fingrut. The collaborative and interdisciplinary project team received over $34,000 via Canadian Blood Services’ BloodTechNet program to develop tools to educate healthcare professionals about racial disparity in blood, stem cell, and organ and tissue donation pools, particularly for Black Canadians. The tools were initially envisioned to include a module, workshop, and social media resources to support donation engagement campaigns.

Says Dr. Fingrut:

“We recently published a review paper in Vox Sanguinis on this topic. After developing the transfusion medicine / transplantation health equity curriculum focused on disparities in representation across blood, stem cell, and organ & tissue donor pools, we piloted this curriculum with a national cohort of Canadian medical students. It was also piloted at two healthcare professional conferences, including the annual meetings of the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP) in 2023 and the AABB in 2024.

We are currently preparing to submit a manuscript on the development and evaluation of this curriculum and continue to spearhead Canadian national campaigns to engage diverse peoples to donation of blood, stem cells, and organs & tissues. These include Black Donors Save Lives, Saving Lives with Pride, Iranian Donors Save Lives, East Asians Save Lives, and South Asians Save Lives.”

• Recordings of educational sessions featuring the curriculum at previous professional conferences are available on demand:

  • CDTRP 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting and

  • AABB 2024 - Addressing Racial Disparities Across Donation Products for Marginalized Peoples.

Co-investigators in this project included Canadian Blood Services scientist, Dr. Jennie Haw, as well as Dr. Murdoch Leeies. Dr. Leeies expertise in organ donation and transplantation is also being applied to a second, separate BloodTechNet-funded project for which he is the principal investigator (awarded in 2024).

This additional example of a BloodTechNet-funded project focused on developing free, interactive, virtual curriculum in the context of living donation, deceased donation and transplantation about patient-centred care for 2SLGBTQI patients and families. Part of its identified goals are to establish a strong theoretical foundation and offer practice-based learning for healthcare professionals.

Describes Dr. Leeies: 

“We engaged with 2SLGBTQI+ patients and caregivers in the OTDT system to document their lived experiences, understand their priorities and amplify their voices as we advocate for health equity. These real-world experiences clearly identified a need for enhanced healthcare worker training in 2SLGBTQI+ health and cultural humility. 2SLGBTQI+ community members across Canada also supported the need for enhanced healthcare worker training in a national survey conducted with the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC).

Furthermore, Canadian OTDT health-care workers themselves identified a gap in their own training and abilities to provide inclusive care for 2SLGBTQI+ patients and supported a need for this education. To address this unmet need we partnered with OTDT experts, 2SLGBTQI+ advocates, Egale Canada and Canadian Blood Services to create an interactive educational intervention with the aim of increasing inclusion and belonging of 2SLGBTQI+ folks in the OTDT system.”

The final curriculum, 2SLGBTQI Inclusive Care for OTDT Healthcare Professionals, is now available on-demand through Canadian Blood Services professional development website.

According to Dr. Leeies, the next steps in this research program will include an evaluation of the impact of this novel curriculum on practice and patient/caregiver experiences.

• Select peer-reviewed publications stemming from this project include:

  • Lived Experiences of Sexual and Gender Minorities in Solid Organ Transplantation: A Best-Fit Framework Synthesis and Inductive Thematic Analysis

  • Sexual and gender minoritized persons in organ and tissue donation: a qualitative analysis

  • Sexual and Gender Minorities in Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation (OTDT): A Survey of Canadian OTDT Health Care Workers

• To learn more about NOTDAW, visit National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Campaigns | Blood.ca

Canadian Blood Services – Driving world-class innovation 

Through discovery, development and applied research, Canadian Blood Services drives world-class innovation in blood transfusion, cellular therapy and transplantation—bringing clarity and insight to an increasingly complex healthcare future. Our dedicated research team and extended network of partners engage in exploratory and applied research to create new knowledge, inform and enhance best practices, contribute to the development of new services and technologies, and build capacity through training and collaboration. Find out more about our research impact.  

The opinions reflected in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Canadian Blood Services nor do they reflect the views of Health Canada or any other funding agency.