Family Readiness Assessment Tool (FRAT)

MTN recognizes the challenges faced by hospital staff members when a family adamantly requests immediate extubation, and a donation conversation needs to be facilitated. To support hospital staff in providing more timely donation conversations with families, our goal is to partner with you to proactively assess family readiness for donation conversations using the FRAT.

You may notice that while rounding/calling on open referrals, additional questions may be asked regarding family readiness for “next steps” discussions. These may include the responsiveness of family toward a grave prognosis, comments by the family that may lead you to believe they may elect comfort care in the next day or two, or any red flags such as distrust, ethics consult or family members who are not clearly aligned. Your communication is key in supporting families through the end-of-life process while ensuring a space remains for the donation process that meets the family’s desired time frames.

Together, we have the power to:

• Provide excellent support to families through the end-of-life process

• Match the donation discussion to the family timeline for end-of-life decisions/palliative extubation

• Decrease family donation declines due to not being able to meet time frame expectations

• Uphold First-Person Authorization

• Decrease the number of expedited DCD cases

• Increase/maximize the number of lifesaving transplants

• Decrease the number of organs not transplanted