ANALYSIS OF ONLINE ALGORITHMS FOR ORGAN ALLOCATION

In this paper we discuss online algorithms for organ allocation. We will show that in order to select the patient that should receive the organ we must look not only at each patient individually, as is done now, but also at the current pool of patients. Current work in progress shows that the expected distribution of patients as well as the expected distribution of organs should affect the allocation policy. In this paper we will solve, using the online model, some simplifications of the general problem. We will explain the intuition that we glean from them. We will also present some preliminary results from analyzing the problem using statistical and simulation methods.