We are thrilled to receive this award, which will allow my colleagues and me to build upon that existing expertise to improve outcomes for patients involved with kidney transplantation.
Abraham J. Matar, MDThe Dartmouth Health transplant team was recently awarded $375,000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) for their contributions to accelerating innovation supporting living kidney donors and patients who depend on them. The proposal, led by transplant surgeon Abraham J. Matar, MD, is one of nine winners of the 2026 KidneyX Living Link Empower Challenge from the Kidney Innovation Accelerator (KidneyX), a public-private partnership between HHS and ASN.
Matar and team were awarded funding for their proposal, “A Rural Living Donor TeleNavigation Hub to Reduce Barriers and Increase Living Kidney Donation.” This initiative will develop and pilot a telehealth-enabled, donor-centered model to make living kidney donation more accessible for rural communities. The program will combine virtual donor education, individualized navigation, coordination of local testing, peer mentorship from prior rural donors, and structured telehealth follow-up after donation. By moving support closer to donors’ homes and addressing practical barriers such as travel, work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, and fragmented care coordination, the project seeks to improve both the donor experience and equitable access to living-donor transplantation.
“Candidates for kidney donation and living donors already face tremendous obstacles in receiving the care and resources necessary for optimal recovery and outcomes. Living in a rural area, which presents its own challenges for accessing care for any patient, only exacerbates these obstacles,” said Matar, who is part of Dartmouth Health’s Walter and Carole Young Center for Digestive Health. “Dartmouth Health has established expertise in telehealth innovation, including models that have expanded specialty care for rural patients. We are thrilled to receive this award, which will allow my colleagues and me to build upon that existing expertise to improve outcomes for patients involved with kidney transplantation.”
The 2026 Empower Prize Challenge emphasized living donation as a critical pathway to improving outcomes and saving lives, ensuring that living donors are supported before, during, and after donation as they helped more Americans receive life-saving transplants. By combining real-world experience with technical innovation, the winners will create solutions that save lives and reach more people.
“A kidney transplant from a living donor is the optimal form of treatment for most people with kidney failure, yet a variety of barriers have prevented many Americans from becoming living donors,” said ASN president Samir M. Parikh, MD, FASN. “Today, I am inspired by the nine KidneyX Living Link Empower prize challenge winners, whose winning solutions will help many people overcome these barriers and save the lives of their fellow Americans through living donation.”
Learn more at kidneyxempowerchallenge.org.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital, the Golisano Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Health, and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.