Driven by Data, Guided by Purpose: The HHRI Transplant Team

When it comes to innovative analytics that help heal and save lives through organ, eye, and tissue donation, no one gives a data-driven push like the HHRI (CDRG) Transplant Team.

Nestled within Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute’s (HHRI) Chronic Disease Research Group (CDRG) division, this team knows transplant data. From statistical modeling, to simulating current and future states of the solid organ transplant system, to advancing living donor long-term outcomes research, to educating and empowering patients as they travel along their personal transplant journeys, the HHRI Transplant Team constantly strives to be a trusted resource and caring collaborator for the transplant community.

“Data doesn’t just tell a story. In transplant, it tells a life story,” said Jon Snyder, PhD, MS, Director of Transplant Epidemiology at HHRI. “When we take a step back from the data, we learn not only where we’ve been, but where we’re going.” These stories are what drive improvement, and why the HHRI Transplant Team is constantly working on improving the system through the work they do.

Having been the contractor for the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) for the past 15 years, the HHRI Transplant Team comprises trailblazing biostatisticians, clinicians, surgeons, IT personnel, project managers, science communicators, editors, and human-centered design engineers, whose goal is grand but simple: to make the transplant system better through everything they do.

In addition to the work the team does for SRTR, (which includes biannual transplant center and organ procurement organization reports, an annual data report published in partnership with the American Journal of Transplantation, transplant decision tools, and much more), their efforts also involve custom transplant data analytics and reporting, data visualizations, simulation studies, and additional services for their other clients. The team has a reputation in the transplant community that is anchored in a specific set of core values: integrity, innovation, clarity, excellent customer service, and striving to continuously improve the transplant system.

“To improve the system is to improve the outcomes; to improve the outcomes is to save a life,” said Allyson Hart, MD, MS, Deputy Director of HHRI Transplant. “Through our partnership with patients, we take a very grounded approach to making the data work for them. We focus on data, but we never forget that the data is made up of the patients we serve through the work that we do.”

To learn more about the HHRI Transplant Team and their work, please visit their webpage. And to see some of their work in action on a national scale, visit the SRTR website.

Story written by:

Mona Shater, CDRG