The University of Kansas Health System shed light on how new federal standards will effect the health system's transplant and organ donation programs.
The Biden Administration on Wednesday announced plans to overhaul the country's organ transplant system.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will focus on modernizing outdated technical systems, accountability and transparency.
A big problem for local health systems is logistics.
Organs donated in Kansas City could be shipped across the country while a local patient waits for a transplant.
The University of Kansas Health System says that means only 17% of its own organ bank stays local.
Just months ago, the music in Gary Gray's life was all but gone.
"It was very hard to see him as a physician go downhill, see his life slip away through his fingers. And he needed a transplant," Dr. Ryan Taylor, medical Director of liver transplant at the University of Kansas Health System, said
"It was the absolute first time I'd ever been faced with looking at my own mortality," Gray said. "And thinking, 'You know, I really could die from this.'"
Gray says his mind started to slip, poisoned by the buildup of toxins his failing liver couldn't process.
"I wanted to see my daughter graduate from college, and I wanted to see her kind of out on her own before I let go," he said. "And that was a big concern for me," he said.
He could barely walk, he couldn't play and he still couldn't get a new liver despite efforts by his local doctor.
"And so as a healthcare provider and professional, you feel caught in the middle," Dr. Taylor said. "Between trying to help the patient and yet working through a system that at times is imperfect."
Despite attempts to make it more equitable, many feel the system is deeply broken.
Dr. Tim Schmitt, director of transplant at the University of Kansas Health System, says when the United Network for Organ Sharing changed its distribution strategy, it inadvertently made it more difficult for a patient like Gray to get a donated organ in his own city.
"Kind of haywire in the 2020's when they went to these broad circles of distribution," Dr. Schmitt said. "And I felt like UNOS had really lost touch with the transplant principle in general, trying to help patients."
After four years of waiting, Gray made his own fate.
He found a way around the broken system by getting a transplant in Philadelphia after meeting a living, partial donor he found online.
"[I get to] see my daughter grow up," Gray said. "She's home on spring break now. We're sitting around having a great time because I'm there."
