The Jesica Santillan tragedy reminds us what we must do to benefit more people.

America’s organ transplant system is regarded as the best, or among the best, in the world. But the recent death of a Mexican girl brought to the country for heart and lung transplants reminds us how much better our medical structure still needs to become.

How are recipients chosen, and how could the situation be dealt with better?

Writes Jane Eisner of the Knight Ridder Newspaper organization: “The legal, medical and ethical issues of this case will take years to resolve; the emotional wounds felt by her family and a grieving community may never heal. This frail 17-year-old with a sweet grin, an enlarged and weakened heart and faulty lungs has become the poster child for all that can go wrong with cutting-edge medicine’s dramatic promises. … But her story need not be defined by sadness and recrimination. It would serve us all well to put her story into perspective and to good use.”

The girl had waited three years for what turned out to be the wrong organs, intended for a patient with a different blood type but mistakenly given to her in what is described as “gross human error.” She then received a highly unusual and controversial second transplant, but it was too late to save her.

Medical people stress that this incident was extremely rare. That does not lessen the pain of those involved; it does emphasize that new approaches and guidelines may be in order.

Some Americans are concerned that organs that could have helped one or two of their fellow citizens wound up going to a girl from Mexico. Yet the very fact that our system is so good led the family to collect money on street corners for their sick child, something most families would do if necessary. The situation clearly could have been handled much better, perhaps with no tragedy at all, if our system was more penetrating and widespread.

Adds Eisner: “Yes, every hospital and donor organization must review their procedures so that the chain of miscommunication that left Jesica Santillan’s blood type undisclosed will not happen again. It does not minimize this inexcusable error to point out these kinds of mistakes are very rare.”

But gains can occur from this terrible development.

One gigantic problem is that too many Americans (and their families) hesitate for various reasons to express their desire to become organ donors. The United Network for Organ Sharing, which coordinates donations nationwide, said recently that there are about 80,500 people on its waiting list. That list could be cut sharply and concerns by prospective donors could be lessened if there were fewer stories like the one about Jesica Santillan. Changes are needed.

Even though our organ donation system may be the best in the world, it can become much better and gain far wider assistance from the prospective donor pool.