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Apple To Encourage Organ Donation With Health App (cnet.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the head-shoulders-knees-and-toes dept.
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.
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Apple To Encourage Organ Donation With Health App More

Apple To Encourage Organ Donation With Health App

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  • Nothing new (Score:5, Funny)

    by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @03:47PM (#52451649)

    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!

  • Well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mridoni ( 228377 ) on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @04:16PM (#52451939)

    ... sorry, Steve, five years too late.

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @04:56PM (#52452267)

      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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        His mistake of eschewing medical treatment for alternative medicine should have knocked him off the transplant list, or at least put him on the bottom.

      • 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)

    by liquid_schwartz ( 530085 ) on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @04:21PM (#52451975)
    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.

    • Re: use the opt out system (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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

      • Windows 10 changes impacted the user. When the "user" in my case is dead, and the organs will not benefit them any longer, why not help someone else. To mix the analogies, if a person died and their laptop had to be buried with them would it matter if it was changed to Win10 first?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by phorm ( 591458 )

        At that point you're dead, there's no so much forcing as making use of what's left of your earthly remains.

    • 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

  • 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.

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  • 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?

  • 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.

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