Apple To Encourage Organ Donation With Health App (cnet.com) 63
An anonymous reader writes: Apple announced today that its updated Health app, which will be available as part of iOS 10, will allow people to sign-up to be organ donors. The app will use its Medical ID feature, which has been used in the past to keep track of medical and health information, to include the ability to register as a donor of organs, eyes and tissues. The registrations will be forwarded to the National Donate Life Registry, an organization managed by Donate Life of America. All you need to do is tap the registration button in the Health app to volunteer as an organ donor. That adds your status as a donor to an "emergency information" screen that can appear even when the phone is locked. Tapping another button brings up information on organ donation. The demand for organs greatly exceeds the supply, as more than 120,000 Americans are currently waiting for a transplant -- every 10 minutes a new person is added to that waiting list, according to Apple. The feature is currently available for developers, but will be rolling out to the public in the public beta soon.
Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure why this is news, here. Organ donation has been part of the Apple Store for years now. Wake me when they ask for more than just arms and legs!
Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)
Apple will now sell your kidney directly to a donor, at a 30% markup.
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under us law you can't sell Organs and there is no way the mob will give apple 30%
Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not gonna name names here, but someone has already donated his humerus.
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Hey! I broke my humerus last year! That's not funny!
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The more popular option would be "If you click here to give the company resale rights to your organs after you die, we'll give you $5000 cash up front right now".
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News?
this should be a stephen king movie!
organ iphone app gets hacked and one by one users having "accidents".
their bodies end up in an under-ground disassembly plant.
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How about a kidney [dailymail.co.uk].
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It's not that nefarious... the complexities of the law are totally lost on hospital staff and they can misunderstand "organ donor" to mean "don't try to save me". Really. My wife works in a hospital and will not become an organ donor. I'm still willing to risk it, but partially because I know she's wise to the game.
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That seems to be an indictment of your hospital (or possibly your wife) rather than the entire system.
Among other things, hospitals put MORE effort to saving organ donors than they do for non-organ donors. They want the organs in as best condition as possible.
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I agree that being in a hospital is dangerous, but that "third leading cause of death" stat is totally BS. The study said that there were medical mistakes in xxx numbers of deaths, not that xxx deaths were caused by medical mistakes. A concern for sure, but totally different things.
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She's in a major-city hospital now, and one of the best in the world prior. You'd be shocked how badly hospital staff are taught about law and how misunderstood things like organ donor status and do not resuscitate orders are. Again, it's not about malice or effort - it's simply not understanding what a status like "organ donor" means.
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That seems to be an indictment of your hospital (or possibly your wife) rather than the entire system.
Since the system contains hospitals like that, and you cannot know with certainty which hospital you'll end up in if you're injured (even if you are injured next door to a hospital, you can end up trucked to a different one for a variety of reasons) it is in fact an indictment of the entire system.
Among other things, hospitals put MORE effort to saving organ donors than they do for non-organ donors.
[citation needed]
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They need the organs in as good shape as possible. So when your heart stops beating, instead of simply saying "Time of death ...." and walking away, they hook you up to machines that keep your body alive and functioning, till they come in and cut everything out.
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This kind of thought demonstrates ignorance. it's based on the false belief that somehow, the organ donors get WORSE treatment than dead people.
The truth is that if you can't respond but could recover, and are not a an organ donor, they simply pull the plug and let you die. Then they bury the organs you worked so hard to prevent
other people from getting.
It takes more than simply not responding to get you marked as dead.
The number of people that a) can't respond, yet b) can still live if they pull the plu
Re:Organ Donation (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you are an organ donor, then they take extra steps to make sure you are really dead."
Nurse: Here's one.
Organ Collector: Nine pence.
Organ Donor: I'm not dead.
Organ Collector: What?
Nurse: Nothing. [hands the collector his money] There's your nine pence.
Organ Donor: I'm not dead!
Organ Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Nurse: Yes he is.
Organ Donor: I'm not.
Organ Collector: He isn't.
Nurse: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Organ Donor: I'm getting better.
Nurse: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Organ Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Organ Donor: I don't want to go on the cart.
Nurse:' Oh, don't be such a baby.
Organ Collector: I can't take him.
Organ Donor: I feel fine.
Nurse: Oh, do me a favor.
Organ Collector: I can't.
Nurse: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
Organ Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Nurse: Well, when's your next round?
Organ Collector: Thursday.
Organ Donor: I think I'll go for a walk.
Nurse: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Organ Donor: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[The collector paces for an idea, then whacks the body with his club, solving the problem]
Nurse: Ah, thank you very much.
Organ Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Nurse: Right.
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I was thinking more about this one [youtube.com].
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Oh, yes, though I was really responding to the "make sure you're dead" part. More importantly, I haven't seen Meaning of Life in a decade or longer.
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Going by this data from the CDC [cdc.gov] (PDF warning), about 150k people between the ages of 15-44 died in the US in 2007. Not all of those organs will be usable for donation for various reasons, but I suspect that it would put a
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Well... (Score:3, Funny)
... sorry, Steve, five years too late.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
He received a liver transplant (possibly jumped the queue to get to it by buying a house, who knows).
He died when he did because of three things:
1) he had pancreatic cancer. It's so hard to detect that a donor pancreas -- were that to be possible -- would be irrelevant, because it has often spread or become very serious; even with the least worst form of pancreatic cancer, the secondary impact on your health is dramatic even if it doesn't spread. This makes any subsequent treatment take a heavier toll.
2) he delayed cancer treatment (let's be kind to him and not criticise why, but he did), worsening his outcome, even though he was lucky enough to have that least-worst, treatable form of pancreatic cancer.
3) part of the process of his cancer treatment was a Whipple procedure (a modified one I think). Life expectancy after Whipple is on average about five years; it's a seriously dramatic procedure that comes with many, many major side-effects, not least possible liver cancer developed independent of the original cancer.
Even if he hadn't delayed his treatment, the Whipple procedure might have given him only a few years. Another organ donation at that point would have been unlikely.
Shitty bad luck and a bad but forgiveable personal judgement call. My mother died of the least treatable form of pancreatic cancer, after putting up quite a fight. It's a fucking terrifying disease. Don't make crappy jokes, donate to pancreatic cancer research.
captcha: miseries. Too fucking right.
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let's be kind to him and not criticise why
No let's not. When we sugar coat things out of respect people, other's don't get a chance to learn from those incidents.
He delayed his treatment because he attempted alternative medicine and didn't believe in the conventional system. That was stupid. He paid the price. Everyone should know this so we have a chance and burying the stupid bunk medicine along with him.
use the opt out system (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: use the opt out system (Score:1)
I understand the point you are trying to make and the intent, but this is just plain wrong.
You are suggesting to take away the human right of free choice by setting a default 'on' then forcing action if you disagree. The current setting is neither on or off, it has to be set either way and for good reason.
Haven't we already covered this argument? This is the same shit Microsoft is doing with Windows 10. How do you feel about that, even after you said no? Granted, one is an operating system, and the othe
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Once you are dead you are no longer a person, you are an object.
Cool, once I am object can I become a sex toy? Every nerd needs to get laid once!
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At that point you're dead, there's no so much forcing as making use of what's left of your earthly remains.
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I wish that organ donating was an opt out system instead of an opt in system. It's not like anyone will miss their organs anyway.
I'll miss them if they don't bother to save me because they think there's not much chance to do so, but my organs will benefit someone else. ISTR there was a system where you could register such that only other registered donors could get your organs, which is my other objection. I'm willing to be in a registered donor program, but only if only other registered donors would be valid recipients. Since that's not how the program works, I'm not willing to participate. I'd rather just die and go moldy than bene
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So you don't want teenagers or children to be able to have lifesaving organ transplants. you're a monster.
They can get them from their family. I didn't make them. When medical professionals stop admitting that they don't try as hard to save organ donors, I'll start thinking about becoming one.
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22 die each day (Score:2)
organdonor.gov [organdonor.gov] says, "an average of 22 people die each day waiting for transplants that can't take place because of the shortage of donated organs."
I'm a registered organ donor. After I die, I won't need my heart, kidneys, etc. But other people will.
Bottes Timberland Pas Chers Homme (Score:1)
Situational awareness (Score:1)
Can it sign up people who text-and-drive automatically? How about those who wander across crosswalks against the signal while glued to their phone?
Android N (Score:2)
Interestingly Android N has this built in too. A new emergency contact screen has been added allowing you to add contacts that will appears under 'emergency call' when your screen is locked. Along side this, you can specify some information about yourself, like date of birth, blood type, and whether you are an organ doner. And it doesn't require that you installed an app first - it's part of the OS.