‘Back to Life’—Using knowledge exchange processes to enhance lifestyle interventions for liver transplant recipients: A qualitative study

Interventions to prevent excessive weight gain after liver transplant are needed. The purpose of the present study was to enhance a specialist post-transplant well-being program through knowledge exchange with end-users.The study used an interactive process of knowledge exchange between researchers, clinicians and health system users. Data were collected as focus groups or telephone interviews and underwent applied thematic analysis.There were 28 participants (age 24-68 years; 64% male). The results identified experiences that may influence decisions around health behaviours during the course of transplant recovery. Three over-arching themes were identified that impact on liver transplant recipients post-transplant health behaviours. These include (i) Finding a coping mechanism which highlighted the need to acknowledge the significant emotional burden of transplant prior to addressing long-term physical wellness; (ii) Back to Life encompassing the desire to return to employment and prioritise family, while co-ordinating the burden of ongoing medical monitoring and self-management and (iii) Tailored, Personalised Care with a preference for health care delivery by transplant specialists via a range of flexible eHealth modalities.This person-centred process of knowledge exchange incorporated experiences of recipients into service design and identified life priorities most likely to influence health behaviours post-transplant. Patient co-creation of services has the potential to improve the integration of knowledge into health systems and future directions will require evaluation of effectiveness and sustainability of patient-centred multidisciplinary service development

An overview of the research evidence on ethnicity and communication in healthcare

• The aim of the present study was to identify and review the available research evidence on 'ethnicity and communication' in areas relevant to ensuring effective provision of mainstream services (e.g. via interpreter, advocacy and translation services); provision of services targeted on communication (e.g. speech and language therapy, counselling, psychotherapy); consensual/ participatory activities (e.g. consent to interventions), and; procedures for managing and planning for linguistic diversity

Three-Dimensional Bioprinting of Human Organs and Tissues: Bioethical and Medico-Legal Implications Examined through a Scoping Review

Three-dimensional bioprinting is a rapidly evolving technology that holds the promise of addressing the increasing demand for organs, tissues, and personalized medicine. By employing computer-aided design and manufacturing processes, 3D bioprinting allows for the precise deposition of living cells, biomaterials, and biochemicals to create functional human tissues and organs. The potential applications of this technology are vast, including drug testing and development, disease modeling, regenerative medicine, and ultimately, organ transplantation. However, as with any groundbreaking technology, 3D bioprinting presents several ethical, legal, and regulatory concerns that warrant careful consideration. As the technology progresses towards clinical applications, it is essential to address these challenges and establish appropriate frameworks to guide the responsible development of 3D bioprinting. This article, utilizing the Arksey and O’Malley scoping review model, is designed to scrutinize the bioethical implications, legal and regulatory challenges, and medico-legal issues that are intertwined with this rapidly evolving technology

Characterizing organ donation awareness from social media

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the IEEE via the DOI in this recordApproximately 22 people die every day in the USA due to a lack of organs for transplant. Research suggests that the most effective solution is to increase organ donor rates; current, proposals range from expanding the donor eligibility criteria (donor pool) to performing mass media campaigns. However, little is known about the extent in which activities on social media are associated with aspects (e.g. awareness) of organ donation. Our hypothesis is that social media can be utilized as a sensor to characterize organ donation awareness and population engagement in donation for each different organ. In this sense, we collected Twitter messages (tweets) regarding organ donation, and characterized organ awareness by aggregating tweets from users who mostly mentioned that organ. Similarly, we assessed the relative risk between the cumulative incidence of organ related conversations inside and outside geographical regions to characterize them regarding organ donation awareness. Our characterization suggests that organ-related conversations on social media seems to be indeed associated with aspects of organ donation such as the co-occurrence of organ transplantations. Also, we found variations regarding the specific organs that are prominently discussed in each geographical region, and that such variations seem to be associated with aspects of organ donation in that region; for instance, the abnormal amount of conversations about kidneys in Kansas. Our findings suggest that the proposed approach has the potential to characterize the awareness of organ donation in real-Time

A data-driven social network intervention for improving organ donation awareness among minorities: analysis and optimization of a cross-sectional study

This is the author accepted manuscriptBACKGROUND: Increasing the number of organ donors may enhance organ transplantation, and past health interventions have shown the potential to generate both large-scale and sustainable changes, particularly among minorities. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to propose a conceptual data-driven framework that tracks digital markers of public organ donation awareness using Twitter and delivers an optimized social network intervention (SNI) to targeted audiences using Facebook. METHODS: We monitored digital markers of organ donation awareness across the United States over a 1-year period using Twitter and examined their association with organ donation registration. We delivered this SNI on Facebook with and without optimized awareness content (ie, educational content with a weblink to an online donor registration website) to low-income Hispanics in Los Angeles over a 1-month period and measured the daily number of impressions (ie, exposure to information) and clicks (ie, engagement) among the target audience. RESULTS: Digital markers of organ donation awareness on Twitter are associated with donation registration (beta=.0032; P<.001) such that 10 additional organ-related tweets are associated with a 3.20% (33,933/1,060,403) increase in the number of organ donor registrations at the city level. In addition, our SNI on Facebook effectively reached 1 million users, and the use of optimization significantly increased the rate of clicks per impression (beta=.0213; P<.004). CONCLUSIONS: Our framework can provide a real-time characterization of organ donation awareness while effectively delivering tailored interventions to minority communities. It can complement past approaches to create large-scale, sustainable interventions that are capable of raising awareness and effectively mitigate disparities in organ donation.Rosenfeld Heart Foundatio