**1. Introduction**

The process of organ procurement from non-living donors (OPNLD) is multi-factorial and complex [1]. In the United States, significant progress has been made toward wider availability

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

of organs for transplantation [2, 3]. This includes increased use of organs from donors after cardiac death (DCD) as well as the inclusion of "expanded criteria" donors (ECD) and the introduction of information technology-based tools for better organ allocation [3]. Despite tremendous progress, major challenges remain including the growing number of patients entering transplant waiting lists [4].

It has long been known that more organs may be available than are being currently captured within the existing organ procurement organization (OPO) network [5]. In addition, some organs are lost through suboptimal organ donor resuscitation and/or lack of timely OPO notification [6, 7]. In this chapter, the authors will discuss the modern process of OPNLD, beginning with potential donor identification, then proceeding with physiological optimization, and finally ending with the procurement procedure. To illustrate key points more effectively, a realistic hypothetical case-based scenario will be presented.
