Title: An intelligent agent approach to improving the coordination efficiency in the donor kidney distribution process

Authors: Jiangxu Zhao, Yufei Yuan, David Ludwin, Amiram Gafni

Addresses: Moore Capital Management, LLC, 1251 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, USA. ' DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M4, Canada. ' St. Joseph's Healthcare, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M4, Canada. ' Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M4, Canada

Abstract: Kidney transplantation is an effective treatment for an end-stage renal disease. Donor kidneys need to be matched with appropriate patients, distributed and transplanted very quickly (less than 40 hr) in order to achieve optimal medical results. In this paper we analyse the bottlenecks in the current donor kidney distribution process and investigate how agent technology can be applied to improve this process. We propose a distributed multi-agent system operating in a mobile communication environment to assist transplant coordinators in coordinating with multiparties in this time-critical distribution process. A prototype system has been developed to demonstrate the feasibility of such a system.

Keywords: kidney transplants; multi-agent systems; mobile communications; multiparty collaboration; operation efficiency; intelligent agents; coordination efficiency; donor kidney distribution; bottlenecks; agent-based systems; time-critical distribution; electronic healthcare; e-health; kidney donors.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEH.2007.015325

International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, 2007 Vol.3 No.4, pp.479 - 496

Published online: 08 Oct 2007 *

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