Hospitals Team with LifeGift to Tackle Organ Shortage

Several Texas Medical Center hospitals have joined forces with LifeGift Organ Donation Center to combat the critical shortage of organs available to save the lives of patients needing transplants.

In an effort titled the “Core” strategy, LifeGift staff members are placed in 11 Houston hospitals where they collaborate closely with hospital staff to help provide for the needs of donor families. The effort concentrates resources and donation recovery at the most productive hospitals in the LifeGift service area – a 109-county region of Texas.

The strategy is modeled after LifeGift’s experience with in-house specialists at Houston’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and Ben Taub General Hospital. Following the program’s implementation in these hospitals in the mid-1990s, LifeGift has recovered organs from an average 48 percent more donors each year.

“LifeGift is energized by the initiative taken by our TMC colleagues to partner with us on this effort,” said Kim Davis, LifeGift managing director. “We are convinced that it will help us better address the critical shortage of organs and tissue for those needing transplants.”

LifeGift president and chief executive officer Sam Holtzman envisioned the concept after exhaustively reviewing seven years of donation data. The analysis revealed that 90 percent of the agency’s organ donors had come from a total of 20 core hospitals, including 13 hospitals in Southeast Texas. In addition, 40 percent of LifeGift tissue donors – individuals donating skin, bone, veins and heart valves – came from the same 20 centers. And for the second time in three years, Memorial Hermann recently was recognized as the top donor hospital in the country.

Houston hospitals involved in the Core strategy include: Ben Taub General Hospital, Christus St. Joseph Hospital, Houston Northwest Medical Center, Memorial Hermann Hospital, Memorial Hermann Memorial City Hospital, Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital, and The Methodist Hospital.

“LifeGift long has a history of innovative programs to address the needs of transplant patients,” remarked Richard Wainerdi, Ph.D., president of the Texas Medical Center. “I am encouraged that this program could help us save additional lives.”

April is National Donate Life Month. For additional details about organ and tissue donation or a free donor card, contact LifeGift at 1-800-633-6562 or visit http://www.lifegift.org.

Organ Donation Fast Facts

• Just one organ and tissue donor can provide seven life-saving organs and life-enhancing tissues for 75 individuals.
• More than 80,000 Americans currently wait for a life-saving organ transplant. Less than half will ever receive an organ.
• LifeGift donation specialists work closely with families during the consent process, providing information and emotional support in the midst of sorrow and tragedy.
• LifeGift provides opportunities for donor families and recipients to meet, if they wish. Once one party makes an inquiry, LifeGift contacts the other to determine if he or she is open to a meeting.
• More than 1,400 families have contributed to the National Donor Family Quilt Project. The quilt is made up of individually designed, 8-inch quilt squares, each contributed by a donor family member in honor of a loved one.
• Each year, LifeGift honors donors and their families at a donor memorial service.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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