Doctors at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center and the California Pacific Medical Center have accomplished a rare feat by successfully completing 18 surgeries as a part of a nine-way kidney transplant operation. According to SF Gate, doctors performed 10 surgeries between five donors and five recipients on Thursday, and completed the remaining eight on Friday.

Kidneys were shuttled back and forth between the two hospitals so that doctors could more efficiently pair donors with compatible recipients. This added to the challenge of organizing the logistics of such a complex operation, but a spokesman from the organ transport company reported that everything went as planned.

There are currently more than 101,000 people in the U.S. waiting for a kidney transplant due to a wide range of health conditions. Friends and family who are willing to donate a kidney can arrange to do so, but the average wait time for a new kidney from a deceased person can extend up to five years.

Using a computer database developed by a former kidney transplant recipient at California Pacific, doctors have been able to initiate longer, successive chains of kidney swaps in order to remove people from the waiting list and cut down on the time it takes to get transplants to people in dire need.

The software matches donors and recipients based on factors such as blood type and the presence of certain proteins in the blood that would cause a recipient’s body to reject a donor organ.

Reid Moran-Haywood, a 56-year-old Napa native started the swap when he was unable to donate his kidney to a friend in need last fall. He reasoned that if he could donate his kidney to someone who was compatible, then a kidney for his friend might be made available somewhere down the line.

His idea proved to be a huge success, and could significantly shape the way organ donor queues are organized in the U.S. The scheme could help battle inefficiencies in hospital administration and ultimately save more lives.