managing donor risk for HIV, HBV, and HCV. Find the current PHS Guideline at: ▶ HRSA has funded the OPTN to expand the COIIN pilot project in 2020, allowing more kidney transplant programs to participate in this OPTN quality improvement activity focused on changing program waitlist management and organ acceptance practices.49 ▶ The Innovation Center’s ETC Model includes a learning collaborative operated by the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ), designed in collaboration with HRSA and informed by the HRSA OPTN COIIN, to reduce the disparity in performance among Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) and transplant centers with the goal of increasing recovery of kidneys by OPOs and utilization of kidneys by transplant centers. This quality improvement learning component will bring HRSA, CMS, transplant centers, OPOs, and the nation’s largest donor hospitals together to generate increased quality and cost-savings to Medicare through the use of systematic quality and process improvement. Additionally, this activity will directly engage patients and families to motivate, activate and empower them to drive the requirement/demand for utilization of viable kidneys. ▶ HHS is organizing a federal workshop to discuss considerations related to the use of Hepatitis C virus positive (HCV+) donor organs in recipients who do not have HCV. Due to the recent increase in the number of deaths from the opioid epidemic, more HCV+ potential organs are available. HCV is now considered to be largely curable with the advent of direct acting anti-viral (DAA) therapy. Ten clinical trials are in process or have been completed to study whether intentional use of HCV+ donor organs in HCV uninfected recipients is safe and effective when recipients are proactively treated with DAA agents. The planned federal workshop is intended to help facilitate a proactive and coordinated approach to developments in this area of study, specifically with regards to potential changes in the standard of clinical care in transplantation. ▶ NIH research led to the seminal discovery of the APOL1 gene, which explains why kidney disease progresses faster among African Americans compared to Caucasians. Building on the discovery of the APOL1 gene in African Americans, NIH founded the APOLLO initiative, which will produce information about the best use of donor kidneys with APOL1 gene variants and also improve donor-recipient matching to decrease the rate of organ discard. OPOs nationwide are participating in this study. Recruitment began in 2019 and will continue at least through 2021.