Five years ago that policy changed.

Instead, the most critically ill patients went to the top of the organ transplant list.

A new study just published in the Archives of Surgery, one of the American Medical Association journals, shows that change has helped save more patients.

Until last month 28-year-old Christine Berman of Robinson was a busy mother of three.

Then one Sunday she began feeling faint and called 9-1-1.

Berman remembers arriving at Allegheny General Hospital and then waking up a week later.

“The next thing I remember is being in intensive care and my mom leaning over my bed telling me I had a new liver.” Berman said.

When Christine got to the ER she was in total liver failure.

She needed a transplant and she needed it right away.

Mary Ann Palumbi, senior director of transplantation services at AGH said, “She was in rapid deterioration and had we not transplanted her probably in the next few days we may not have been able to.”

Thanks to changes in the way livers are allocated Berman got a new liver just in time.

Palumbi said, “Time no longer plays a role, Chrissie is a perfect example. She'd been on the list about 36-hours at the time we were able to obtain a liver for her.”

Under the new guidelines patients needing a liver are given a score based on their lack of liver function, the higher the score, the higher they are on the waiting list.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn., studied the outcomes associated with this change in policy and found a decrease in the number of deaths among those on the waiting list and the change has shortened the wait time for a liver from 294 days to 44 days.

In Berman’s case her wait was only three days.

She got a new liver on November 1 and is already back home and feeling better.

Berman said, “There were a lot of things that had to fall into place and they did. I'm very lucky to be here.”

Berman’s doctors still aren't sure what cause her liver to fail so suddenly. She didn’t suffer from any of the ailments that often cause liver failure.

AGH’s Transplant Center has been transplanting hearts, kidneys and pancreas for 20 years, but Berman was the center’s first liver transplant.

Since Berman’s surgery doctors at AGH already have done a second liver transplant.