Impact of technology-based interventions on linking potential kidney donors and transplant candidates: a scoping review.

Background Despite the demonstrated survival advantage in end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients of a preemptive living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT), there has been a decline in LDKT among African-American and Hispanic populations. Methods We performed a scoping review and summarized the evidence about the use of technology-based interventions (TBI) to not only increase knowledge and awareness of LDKT but to also link living donors with transplant candidates. Results We evaluated 31 studies and characterized them into "transplant-candidate facing" TBI, "transplant donor facing" TBI and "interactive websites" targeting both donors and candidates. For the patient-facing interventions, 60% of studies suggested an increased likelihood of linking possible donors and candidates. The donor-facing interventions showed an increase in donor awareness and 75% of these interventions suggested increasing donor- candidate linkage. Conclusions This study also demonstrates that TBI (regardless of medium) that are accessible and customized to the specific target population can potentially increase linkage of donors to recipients and serve as effective guides to connect potential donors to transplant candidates.