Organ donation and transplantation is a successful therapy that provides cure to some categories of patients suffering from serious organ failures(kidney,heart,liver,lung,pancreas,and bowel).As it is well known,the number of organ donors is still insufficient in all European MS,but another value that should be also considered is the number of organs that are used per donor.Since not all tx programs are running in all EU countries yet,and it is more difficult to find the correct compatibility for some patient categories,it may happen that some organs are not allocated at national level,mainly because there is no suitable recipient on the national WL.These organs although suitable are unfortunately wasted although they could be used in another country.First outcomes of COORENORproject show that the present number of exchanges could grow substantially.The main aim of this action is therefore to better practice of exchange of organs with the end objective of increasing bilateral agreements,and an overallapproach that includes raising awareness and preventing wrong communication attitude.

This Action is meant to complement Member State policies in this field through reaching consensus on essential tools for increasing organ exchange (guidelines, consensus on necessary clinical data, common IT platform, tools for proper communication to general public) and bringing to general attention the possible obstacle and barriers to this form of cooperation, in full accordance with the art 2 of the Public Health Programme 2008-2013. This action also fits very well with the implementation of some priorities of the Action Plan 2009-2015 set by the EU Commission [Com(2008) 818 final] to strenghten cooperation between MS, namely Priority Action 8 aiming to have a system or a structure for the exchange of organs for urgent patients and difficult to treat patients and Priority action 4 (improving the knowledge and communication skills of health professionals and patient support groups on organ transplantation).For these reasons, sustainibility of IT portal should prospectively be ensured directly by EU commission services for which reason system compatibility has been ensured.

Taking advantage of COORENOR project outcomes, the consortium will first perform an overview and analysis of contents of existing bilateral and multilateral agreements between national or international organizations aimed at cross-border organ exchanges. At the same time a common form to be used for international cross-border exchanges will be developed with necessary medical information for speeding up the evaluation procedures of donors and organs. Such form will be tested during a pilot performed through the IT tool developed and adapted under a dedicated work-package. Finally a strategy for tackling communication issues on cross-border exchanges as a part of a general approach to increasing public awareness for organ donation will be defined.

The expected outcome is a EU-wide common approach to the issue of organ exchanges, along with a better knowledge of present barriers and obstacles (financial, logistic, legal), that are presently hindering this practice. This would also give the EU Commission correct inputs for addressing these issues at their level, if the case.