Digitisation of the HTA A and B forms
NHS Blood and Transplant is responsible for establishing the traceability of every organ donated in the UK for the purposes of transplantation.
There are two sets of paper forms that NHSBT use to do this:
- HTA A forms - donor information forms (pre-transplant), and
- HTA B form - post-transplant information
These forms need to meet certain quality standards and must be returned to NHSBT when they are completed.
As part of the ODT Hub Programme, the digitisation of the HTA B form (the form transplant surgeons must complete for every organ they transplant) began in late 2018 with training being rolled out during the early part of 2019. Training workshops were held in every transplant centre in the UK, with the first transplant centre going live during January 2019.
Time-saving and safety-focused benefits
The new digital form features several drop down menus and search functions which will make it quicker to provide information. Validation fields ensure the form is fully completed before submission; this has reduced the time spent chasing missing or illegible information and reduces the need for us to disturb our already busy transplant centre colleagues.
Timely submission of the form enables us to remove patients from the waiting list sooner which in turn helps to stop transplant teams receiving calls for patients that have already received a transplant.
A big time-saving benefit of the new form is that it negates the need to complete a separate paper form for each organ – the patient data just needs to be entered once and then each organ detail can be entered into the relevant data collection fields.
This new digital HTA B form and submission process has reduced the overall time spent completing the form/s and helps our ODT Hub teams support more donors and recipients.
To date 28 of our 31 Transplant Centres are now using the new digital form with over 3000 digital forms submitted since the introduction.