How TransplantCheck works
TransplantCheck is a connection app for dialysis patients and their care team. Patients write in their own words and choose what to share. The care team reads what they share and keeps track of transplant steps.
This page describes the current beta. Clinic review and approval are needed before real patient use.
Day one at the dialysis unit
On the day of a patient’s first dialysis treatment, during intake, the unit can refer them to TransplantCheck for transplant empowerment and help finding a transplant center.
A staff member opens the patient’s page and chooses Pair a phone. The patient types the eight-character code into the app and checks the unit’s name before connecting. Each code works once and ends after 10 minutes.
Patients can also check in from a web browser, with a pairing code from the clinic. If a phone is unpaired, it loses access right away.
A journal in the patient’s own words
Write about today gives patients a journal for their own words. About me lets them say who they are and what matters to them.
Save keeps an entry private. Save and send shares it with the care team.
A shared entry can be withdrawn later. That asks the clinic to delete its text from active records. An audit line remains, and older clinic backups may keep a copy.
Check-ins in about 30 seconds
Each check-in asks about Body, Mind, Load and Life on a scale from 0 to 10, with optional symptoms. On treatment days it asks only about Body and Load. Patients pick their own treatment days.
Missing days are okay. They are left out, not counted as zero.
The app also offers the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 screening questions and the KDQOL-36 survey. A screening result is not a diagnosis.
Learning about transplant
The app’s path to transplant has steps patients can take in any order: Learn the basics, Compare centers, My questions and Make my choice.
Each Learn topic shows its source and whether a reviewer has checked it. Patients can save questions to ask their team. In this beta, Compare centers uses three sample centers, not real ones. Choosing a center does not send anything by itself.
The social worker can help with any step. The patient decides whether to show them the app.
Read the kidney care journey, step by step, or see kidney transplant centers in NY, NJ and CT.
What is shared, and when
Sharing starts off. The app asks once: “Send check-ins to your care team?” It says what the team will get: check-in numbers and symptoms, plus PHQ-9 and GAD-7 totals and bands. When a PHQ-9 is shared, the team also sees the answer to question 9.
After the patient taps Yes, send them, each check-in has Save and send. They can turn sending off later to keep future check-ins private. Journal entries and About me stay private unless the patient taps Save and send.
On iPhone, unshared entries stay on the phone. In a browser, they are saved with the clinic, but the care team can’t see them in TransplantCheck unless they are shared.
What the care team sees
Each patient’s page has five tabs: Overview, Check-ins, Barriers, Transplant path, and Team and history. Each patient’s assigned care team reads their check-ins.
In their words shows the entries a patient shared. Conversation starters, marked as drafts, come from the symptoms a patient picked most often in the last 30 days.
Charts compare each answer with the patient’s own usual, so staff can see what is worse than usual or back near usual.
A Changed list shows new alerts and newly shared entries. Staff mark each one read, and the list shows who read it and when.
Staff can link a patient to support needs, such as getting to treatment, housing, or money, work and insurance. These links describe support needs, not a diagnosis.
Keeping track of transplant steps
The Transplant path tab follows five steps: Learn about transplant, Compare centers, Choice, Referral and Waiting list. Staff record what happened, such as when a referral was sent and the center’s reply.
Requests still go through the clinic’s existing portal, secure fax or mail. Staff send them after the patient approves the request. Transplant centers make their own decisions. TransplantCheck does not automatically connect organizations.
The clinic can load the names of kidney transplant programs from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). No ratings are imported.
What TransplantCheck does not do
Nobody watches check-ins for emergencies. Patients can use Help now.
The care team sees new alerts inside TransplantCheck, but no email, text or push alert is sent.
In the beta, TransplantCheck is not connected to hospital record systems.
Try it at your unit
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Page facts
Written by the TransplantCheck team.
Checked against the beta app on October 31, 2026.