Why hospitals want patients clicking this MyChart button

More than 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ transplants, and each day, an average of 13 die before a donor becomes available. Despite broad public support for organ donation — surveys suggest nearly 9 in 10 adults are in favor of registering — far fewer people take the step of doing so. Most encounter the choice only when renewing their driver’s license, a moment that for many comes only every eight years. The lag leaves thousands of potential donors unregistered.

Two hospitals may have found a way to close part of that gap, however.

Lexington, Ky.-based UK HealthCare and Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital have begun allowing patients to register as organ donors directly through MyChart, Epic’s patient portal. Leaders at both organizations see the portal as a space where patients already make important choices about their health — and now, about their future.

Amit Chadha, MD, UK HealthCare’s chief medical information officer, said the appeal is simple: By placing the option in front of patients within a familiar digital space, the hospital hopes to encourage more people to follow through on their intention to donate.

“Thinking about organ donation once every eight years is too far,” he told Becker’s. “Having a visual cue in front of patients may help them make that choice. It provides that autonomy.”

At Tampa General, the country’s busiest transplant center by volume, the motivation was equally clear. Marjie Rosario, manager of quality and regulatory standards at Tampa General, told Becker’s the hospital felt a responsibility to make organ donor registration easier, calling the move “a significant step” in aligning its digital health strategy with its mission to save lives.

“By integrating this feature into MyChart, we aimed to streamline the registration process, making it more accessible and convenient for our patients,” she said.

The rollout was not the work of a single department. IT specialists ensured the technical side was sound, while the transplant services team helped design a process that would be intuitive for patients. Clinical leadership supported the initiative as part of a broader effort to make the hospital’s digital offerings more proactive.

Early signs suggest patients have welcomed the change. Tampa General promoted the feature through a banner inside MyChart and social media announcements, and within weeks about 760 people had signed up through the portal. Ms. Rosario said the response underscored the value of meeting patients in spaces they already use.

For UK HealthCare, Dr. Chadha said the true benefit of the tool lies in the subtlety of its placement. MyChart is already home to features that help patients plan ahead, such as documenting advance directives, sharing records with outside providers or signing up for research participation. He views organ donor registration as part of that “choice architecture,” a set of small prompts that allow patients to make decisions with long-term effects.

“These are the nudges or visual cues which appear in front of our eyes so that we can decide what is our priority,” he said.

For both systems, the organ donor tool signals a shift in what patient portals can do. No longer just repositories of test results or appointment reminders, portals are evolving into platforms for public health. Tampa General leaders described the donor registration feature as an example of how portals can promote awareness, encourage preventive behaviors and ultimately improve health outcomes at a population level.

Dr. Chadha shares that vision, and he said future versions of the portal will embed even more capabilities, from AI-driven patient education to expanded opportunities for participation in clinical research. But he stressed that in the U.S., the priority should remain giving people the ability to decide for themselves.

“Some countries make organ donation mandatory,” he said. “But with our country and our values, giving choice to the patient is the right thing. That’s what we are trying to do with this functionality.”

For now, the innovation is modest: a banner in a portal, a new button among many. Yet for hospitals that serve tens of thousands of patients each year, those clicks can add up quickly.

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