About 3,000 people die in the United States each year for lack of a liver for transplantation. One in six of those lives could be saved with a simple adjustment in the way the 6,000 or so livers from deceased donors are allocated – to see that the organs more often go to the Americans who need them most.

Under the existing system, managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing, donated livers are prioritized for use in the geographic regions from which they come. In regions where the organs are relatively plentiful, they sometimes go to people who could easily wait longer for a transplant, rather than those who may die without them.

A new system would create just four liver-donation regions in place of the 11 smaller ones that exist today. Mathematical models suggest that sharing livers within these broader zones would save 554 lives a year.

Liver patients in areas where it’s now relatively easy to receive a donated organ fear they would lose out. And it’s true that some would have to wait longer for a transplant. But their more robust health would enable them to do so.

Another objection sometimes raised is that expanding the zones would reduce donations, because people would no longer know that individuals in their own communities would get their donations. Yet 82 percent of respondents to a 2013 survey said they’d prefer their organ go to the person in greatest medical need, regardless of location.

That concept should guide the distribution of donated livers nationally. In the age of overnight delivery service, Americans’ access to lifesaving organs shouldn’t depend on where they live.

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