Magen Chaim Organ Trust

The Problem#

• Organ donation must happen within hours of death — hearts within 4 hours, livers within 12, kidneys within 24
• But the deceased’s organ donation wishes are typically recorded in a will — a document that may not be read for weeks
• Israel’s Organ Transplant Act 2008 grants priority on the waiting list to registered donors, creating strong incentives to donate — but the donation card system has gaps
• Families are asked to make the decision under extreme emotional pressure, often without knowing their loved one’s explicit wishes
• In 30% of cases where the deceased had registered as a donor, the family overrides the decision — often because they can’t verify the registration quickly enough

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• Organ donation consent is modelled in wish.json with the organDonation object: consentGiven (boolean), organs[] (array of specific organs: heart, kidney, liver, lungs, corneas, pancreas), and coordinatingOrganisationId referencing the organ donor registry
• medicalResearchDonation captures separate consent for body donation to science: consentGiven, institutionOrganisationId, and restrictions
• wish.json wishType: "funeral" with autopsyPreference ("requested", "declined", "no_preference") is checked simultaneously — autopsy and donation coordination must align
• The israel extension models the parallel court system (civil_family, rabbinical, sharia, druze) — relevant because religious authorities may influence family decisions about donation
• person.json carries the deceased’s ritualName and religious affiliation, which Magen Chaim uses to connect families with chaplains who support donation within their tradition

The Integration#

• Import-focused: Magen Chaim receives INHERIT documents (or the donation-relevant subset) from estate planning platforms and the national organ donor registry
• When a death occurs in a hospital, the transplant coordinator queries the INHERIT record — the consent status is available within minutes, not days
• The structured format provides the legal proof of consent that families need to feel confident honouring the deceased’s wishes

The Business Case#

• Consent verification time reduced from days to 4 hours — within the critical window for most organ types
• Family override rate projected to drop from 30% to 10% when explicit, structured consent is available immediately
• Each additional organ donor saves an average of 3.5 lives — the structured consent pathway could yield an estimated 40 additional donors per year in Israel
• Magen Chaim’s operating costs remain the same — the INHERIT data replaces manual phone calls and fax searches, not additional staff

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. A registered organ donor dies in hospital; the transplant coordinator calls the family within the hour
2. The family is distraught and unsure — they think their loved one registered, but can’t find the card
3. The coordinator contacts the registry by phone; confirmation takes 6 hours due to overnight staffing
4. By the time consent is confirmed, the heart and lungs are no longer viable; only the kidneys are recovered
5. The will is read three weeks later — it explicitly stated a wish to donate all organs

With INHERIT:

1. The donor’s estate plan includes an organDonation consent with consentGiven: true and organs: ["heart", "kidney", "liver", "lungs", "corneas"]
2. On death, the transplant coordinator queries the INHERIT record — consent is confirmed within 30 minutes
3. The family is shown the structured consent on a screen: their loved one’s explicit, documented wish
4. All five organs are recovered within the critical window; four lives are saved