Waiting for an organ transplant? New portal will let patients track their turn in real time, enable faster access

The portal has also been designed to track outcomes of transplantation, with hospitals being asked to fill details about patients’ health parameters during their follow-up visits. At present, there is no national database on the outcomes of transplantation — hospitals typically maintain such data individually, and it is not available publicly.

The Indian Express had previously reported that NOTTO was working with CDAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) to develop the portal. Now launched, the portal works simply.

How does the portal work? How does one register?

* A patient in need of an organ transplant can be registered on the portal by a hospital of their choice offering the service — as is already the case. Only hospitals, state government health departments and NOTTO can access the portal through their login IDs.

* Instead of relying on their own record-keeping systems, hospitals will now be able to log in to the new portal and directly enter patient data on it.

* Based on the data entered, a hospital-level, state-level, regional-level and national-level waiting list will be created, and the organ will then be transported as per allocation.

According to NOTTO data of 2025, Delhi leads in the total number of transplants (4,564), while Tamil Nadu conducts the highest number of deceased donor transplants (266). The kidney is the most transplanted organ (14,477), followed by the liver and heart, the data shows.

How will the organs be allocated

Based on the portal, the allocation of organs is governed by a set of norms:

* A hospital where organ donation occurs has the first right to those organs. If it does not have a matching patient or does not offer transplant services for certain organs, the organs go to the state pool.

* Since the kidney is the most in-demand and most commonly transplanted organ, the hospital where the donation occurs is allowed to keep one, with the other going to the nearest government centre with a match. If there is no matching recipient at the state level, the organs go to the regional pool, and then to the national pool for allocation.

“All of these inter-hospital, intra-state, and inter-state transfers will be coordinated through and recorded transparently on the portal,” said Dr Anil Kumar, director, NOTTO.

The portal will also enable national matching of swap donors — a process where patients with willing but incompatible donors are matched with each other for transplantation. “At present, swap donors are matched by hospitals. The number of such willing donors is limited at a hospital. Nationally, however, there are about a lakh patients on the waiting list. Finding a matching donor for such a swap would be much easier in the bigger pool,” said the NOTTO director.

When it comes to matching individual patients, those who have a close relative who is a match and is willing to donate an organ can get the donor registered at the same hospital and proceed with the transplant. For those waiting for organs from unrelated deceased donors, organs will be allocated and transported accordingly.

The portal also has a provision for raising alerts. At present, this coordination happens through calls and messages between coordinators at various levels. In addition, the portal will allow people to pledge their organs. These pledges will be Aadhaar-linked to ensure clarity on the donor’s wish in situations where they are unable to consent.

What are the challenges?

A key challenge remains: Different allocation criteria followed by various states.

For instance, Telangana, Maharashtra and Gujarat have their own scoring methods, while West Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Kerala prioritise those who registered earlier as recipients. Tamil Nadu follows another method, where the state is divided into three regional zones, with organs remaining within their specific zone and, if unutilised, allocated to other zones. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh give priority to patients who do not have a living donor, or whose matched living donor has refused to donate.

“We cannot force the states. However, there is a consultation ongoing to bring them on the same page so that the same allocation criteria may be followed across the board,” said Dr Kumar.

According to officials, the portal offers a consolidated list but “the priority in allocation will be as per the state guidelines for now.”

Officials said the portal can also be used for registering new transplant centres and forming various committees. It will allow appropriate state authorities to review and grant new or renewed registrations of hospitals offering transplantation.

“The portal has already gone live, but all its modules are not live yet. They have all been developed, but the teams are taking stock of the traffic to the website. Everything will go live within the next two months,” an official said.