Novartis & Donate Life America present a publishing competition
Optimization Strategies for Organ Donation and Utilization

$10,000
IN PRIZES
Cureus, in collaboration with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation and Donate Life America, is proud to introduce the first Optimization Strategies for Organ Donation and Utilization publishing competition.
With the objective to improve rates of organ donation and transplantation, we invite original articles, clinical outcome studies, organization improvement reports and performance gap analyses that examine the following:
- Organ donation rates and demographics differ significantly across the U.S. Eligible articles will analyze how these rates might be improved, explore potential root causes, document proven or potential strategies to more effectively motivate donor enrollment, or examine where policies might be enhanced or revised.
- Organ utilization rates are not optimized, often due to patient risk adversity, heuristic decision-making and other factors. Studies are invited that examine decision-making that improves or compromises utilization. Eligible articles will analyze potential root causes, discuss organization improvement initiatives, or document proven or potential strategies to more effectively utilize viable transplant opportunities.
The winner of this competition will be selected by general acclaim of the medical community using Cureus SIQ™ crowdsourcing technology. To encourage knowledge sharing and cross-discipline awareness, all published materials will be indexed in PubMed Central and distributed to large communities of relevant clinicians and constituents around the globe. We encourage you to contribute!
Competition Entries
The entry period is now closed. Competition entries appear below as they are published. Now is your chance to score and discuss these articles. Remember, prizes will be awarded to the highest-scoring articles focused on organ donation and utilization improvement strategies, respectively.
Requirements
Eligible entrees are limited to U.S-based clinicians and authors only.
Competition entry and article submission is entirely free. Eligible entrees are limited to the first 30 draft article submissions (maximum one submission per author). All submitted work must be previously unpublished. Previously published abstracts can be submitted as a full paper for this competition. Eligible entries include original articles, review articles, case reports and technical reports.
All articles must be submitted and formatted via the template-driven, self-publishing Cureus platform. Authors are encouraged to include supporting animations and videos within their article submissions. Reference limits vary by article type. For additional information on publishing with Cureus, please refer to our Author Guide.
Statement of Independence
- Cureus Publishing Competitions are intended to encourage medical discovery, document clinical experiences – be they positive, negative, or neutral - and foster broader educational outreach through open access publication that is free to both authors and readers.
- Article submissions must adhere to the described “call for articles” and are open to any and all related manufacturer or vendor technologies.
- As a firewall to ensure objective and credible science, article selection, editorial review, peer review and publication are strictly independent of sponsoring company.
- Winning articles are determined exclusively via peer review panel and community crowdsourced scoring. Neither sponsoring company, nor Cureus, can determine competition outcome.
Other Stipulations
- All clinical studies must be compliant with applicable regulatory, ethics / IRB, and other rules governing protection of human subjects.
- All non-clinical studies must be compliant with applicable AAUC, AAALAC, and other related regulations.
- This program is not intended to promote or otherwise encourage unapproved, un-cleared use of products or any product for unapproved new use.
- This program in no way promotes or purports to encourage any research that is not in compliance with any local, federal, or other applicable governing laws.

Awards
Winning Article Awards
Two monetary prizes will be awarded to the published articles that receive the highest Cureus SIQ™ (Scholarly Impact Quotient™) score:
- $5,000 USD for the winning article focused on organ donation improvement strategies.
- $5,000 USD for the winning article focused on organ utilization improvement strategies.
Subsequent to formal editorial and peer review, published articles undergo SIQ scoring - Cureus’ unique crowdsourced, secondary peer-review process. In addition to measuring engagement, SIQ allows the community-at-large to rate the quality of individual articles. Reviewers assign scores from 1 to 10 on criteria including clarity and rationale, clinical importance, study design and methods, data analysis, novelty of conclusions and quality of presentation.
Aggregated community SIQ scores allow clinicians and researchers to quickly assess quality in a manner similar to that of Amazon® and Yelp® community reviews.
A Cureus user can assign only one score per article. As engagement and scoring is critical to winning, authors are highly encouraged to share their published articles via social media and email.
Referral Award
Not interesting in submitting related research? Please help further medical discovery by referring this publishing program to relevant colleagues within your network. Be the first to refer the winning article author and you’ll receive $1,000 USD for your efforts.
Please click here to refer this program to colleagues.
Sunshine Act Reporting
Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act requires applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologicals, and medical supplies to report payments or other transfers of value made to physicians and teaching hospitals. For winning article and referral awards paid to “covered recipients,” award fees shall be supplied to Novartis Pharmaceuticals for subsequent Sunshine Act reporting.
Peer Review Panel
To review all submitted articles prior to publication, we’ve assembled a world-class peer review panel led by Dr. Richard Gilroy, Medical Director of Liver Transplantation at Intermountain Healthcare. Click on a reviewer name to learn more.
Article analysis and commentary performed by the peer review panel are strictly independent of the sponsor.




Jeffrey P. Orlowski
M.Sc. | MiscellaneousPresident & CEO, LifeShare Transplant Donor Services of Oklahoma

James Eason
M.D., Professor | SurgeryDivision Chief, Transplant Division, University of Tennessee Health Science Center

David Mulligan
M.D., Professor | SurgeryChief, Transplantation Surgery and Immunology, Yale University School of Medicine/Yale New Haven Health

Kenneth Newell
M.D., Professor | SurgeryDivision of Transplantation, Emory University School of Medicine

George Loss
M.D., Ph.D. | SurgeryAssociate Medical Director and System Chairman, Department of Surgery, Ochsner Health System | Chief, Multi-Organ Transplant Institute, Ochsner Health System

Daniela Ladner
Associate Professor, M.D., M.P.H. | SurgerySurgery-Organ Transplantation, Northwestern Medicine

Clifford Miles
Associate Professor, M.D. | NephrologyInternal Medicine Division of Nephrology, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Jon Kobashigawa
M.D., M.D. | CardiologyAssociate Director, Clinical Affairs, Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute




Michael Charlton
M.D. | GastroenterologyHepatology Director and Medical Director of Liver Transplantation, Intermountain Healthcare

Key Dates
- Tuesday, May 24, 2016 – Competition begins; articles may now be submitted.
- Tuesday, September 27, 2016 – Article submission deadline @ 5:00 pm PT (10 weeks)
- Tuesday, October 25, 2016 – Peer review of all eligible articles concludes @ 5:00 pm PT.
- Tuesday, December 6, 2016 – Competition crowdsourced scoring (SIQ) complete @ 5:00 pm PT.
- Tuesday, December 13, 2016 – Winning articles announced