Full Report
Seventeen people die every day in the U.S. while waiting for an organ transplant. Donor Network West, a federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) nonprofit organization serving in northern California and northern Nevada, has been a beacon of hope for […] The post Donor Network West Relies on Critical Communications to Deliver Hope on Time appeared first on Lumen Blog.
Analysis Summary
# Main Topic
Challenges and technological improvements implemented by Donor Network West (DNW), an Organ Procurement Organization (OPO), to ensure critical, time-sensitive communication required for organ and tissue donation, which faces coordination delays potentially impacting the 24-hour transplant window.
## Key Points
- **Operational Urgency:** DNW handles life-or-death coordination, where procedures must ideally be completed within 24 hours of procurement.
- **Volume:** DNW receives approximately 600,000 calls annually requiring robust communication handling.
- **Pre-existing Issues:** The primary difficulties stemmed from a lack of resilience in the existing Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) system, resulting in frequent service disruptions, poor call quality (voice dropouts), and difficulties troubleshooting.
- **Compliance Gap:** The previous setup lacked dual call recording capabilities (always-on and on-demand), hindering quality assurance and compliance monitoring of sensitive calls with donor families and medical staff.
## Threat Actors
- No specific malicious threat actors (hackers, ransomware groups) were identified as the primary threat.
- The "threat" described is operational/technical failure leading to service disruption, which prevents the timely delivery of organs.
## TTPs
- **Operational Disruptions:** Service interruptions causing toll-free and local number unavailability.
- **Communication Degradation:** Voice dropouts impacting clarity during vital coordination calls.
- **Data Incompleteness:** Lost call recordings due to audio issues, leading to incomplete information sharing and compliance risks.
## Affected Systems
- **Organization:** Donor Network West (serving Northern California and Northern Nevada).
- **Systems:** Existing Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) design and associated communication infrastructure.
- **Stakeholders:** Donor families, donor hospitals, transplant centers, and Health Advisors.
## Mitigations
- **Partnership:** Collaboration with Lumen and Apex Datacom to transform the call handling platform.
- **Low Latency Computing:** Implementation of **Lumen® Edge Bare Metal** to run applications closer to users and minimize latency.
- **Advanced Routing:** Deployment of the **Voice Complete®** service for advanced, resilient call routing, automatically rerouting lines during service interruptions.
- **Latency Reduction:** Utilizing the **FastRoute application from Apex Datacom** running on Lumen Edge Bare Metal, achieving response times under 20 milliseconds for clear voice quality.
- **Connectivity Upgrade:** Deployment of **Lumen® Ethernet Local Area Network (ELAN)** and **Dedicated Internet Access (DIA)** for reliable, high-speed connectivity.
- **Storage and Compliance:** Use of **Lumen® Network Storage (LNS)** to support both always-on and on-demand call recordings for compliance needs.
## Conclusion
The primary intelligence derived is a case study demonstrating resilience engineering for mission-critical healthcare logistics. By leveraging edge computing, advanced voice routing, and dedicated, high-speed networking services, Donor Network West successfully mitigated systemic failures that previously risked disrupting the time-sensitive organ donation process. The architectural shift standardized high-quality, resilient communication essential for their life-saving mission.