LifeGift Awarded More Than $1 Million in Federal Grants to Increase Organ Donation

In a White House ceremony Sept. 24, the Division of Transplantation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded LifeGift Organ Donation Center two three-year federal grants totaling more than $1 million. The LifeGift award was part of a three-year $13 million nationwide effort to increase organ donation.

"These projects will help us break new ground in organ donation," says U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. "Most people support the idea of donation, but only about 50 percent of families and others consent to donation of their loved one's organs when asked. These grants will help us develop new strategies encouraging more families to agree to donation."

The first grant, more than $600,000, funds LifeGift programs to increase organ donation in level-one trauma centers, based on its successful three-year study with level-one trauma centers in Houston. LifeGift will use its intervention with Houston's level-one trauma centers as a model program for Detroit, Seattle and third site to be determined in a major metropolitan area.

The second grant, almost $600,000, funds a LifeGift outreach program in Harris County to increase support for organ donation and transplantation among African Americans. The outreach program will target spiritual leaders to play a key role in educating and promoting organ donation among African Americans and help meet a critical need for life-saving transplants.

"I am especially proud that two of Houston's LifeGift Organ Donation Center community projects were chosen from only 18 projects across the nation to receive these federal funds," says Congressman Ken Bentsen, U.S. representative from Houston. "LifeGift's innovative programs to increase Houston-area donations have proven successful and deserving of support.''

The need to increase organ donation is great. More than 65,000 people are on waiting lists for life-saving organ transplants. Due to higher rates of diabetes and high blood pressure, African Americans are more likely than whites to need organ transplants. However, African Americans have been less likely to agree to organ donation, putting African-American patients on organ waiting lists in greater danger. A third of all patients on waiting lists will die before receiving transplants.

Faced with those odds, LifeGift began a three-year study in 1996 at Ben Taub General Hospital and Memorial Hermann Hospital, both level-one trauma centers. Hospitals designated as level-one trauma centers treat a high volume of patients for injuries caused by traumatic incidents such as automobile accidents and gun shots. These injuries frequently cause brain death, yet may leave vital organs intact and suitable for transplant. As a result, level-one trauma centers are five times more likely to be donor hospitals. Yet, of the 232 level-one trauma centers in the United States in 1992, 13 percent produced no organ donors and another 37 percent produced between one and five organ donors.

For its pilot study, LifeGift placed trained, full-time in-house organ donation coordinators at Ben Taub General Hospital and Memorial Hermann Hospital. After the implementation of the program, the number of organ donors increased 94 percent at Ben Taub from an average of 21.7 donors from 1993 to 1995, to 42 donors in 1996. Total organ donors at Memorial Hermann Hospital increased from a three-year average of 36 donors to 39 donors in 1996 and to 49 donors in 1998. The number of donors increased dramatically among African Americans and Hispanics. The number of African-American donors at Ben Taub increased from a three-year average of 6.3 donors to 16 donors in 1996. The number of African-American donors at Memorial Hermann increased from zero donors in 1993 to six donors in 1998. The number of Hispanic donors at Ben Taub increased from the three-year average of 9.3 donors per year to 17 in 1996.

- From LifeGift Organ Donation Center