Gift of Life Donor Program Honors St. Luke's for High Organ Donation Rate

Honor Received for Fourth Consecutive Year

Joel Fagerstrom with Kathy Yandle, Gift of Life
Supervisor of Hospital Services; and, Kathy
Ramson, RN, MSN, NE-BC, St. Luke's Critical
Care Director, celebrate the organ donation rate
at St. Luke's for the ability to provide recipients
with a second chance at life.

Bethlehem, PA (4-20-2009) - Today, the Gift of Life Donor Program presented St. Luke's Hospital - Bethlehem Campus with a Medal of Honor from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The national Medal of Honor recognizes St. Luke's for achieving an organ donation rate of 75 percent or greater during a 12-month period. St. Luke's is among only three percent of the nation's hospitals that have achieved this goal.

Gift of Life also honored St. Luke's for showing exemplary leadership and commitment to organ donors, donor families and patients on the national transplant waiting list. According to Gift of Life, 6,000 people in this region are waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant.

Lives are Saved by Organ Donors 

According to St. Luke's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Joel Fagerstrom, "St. Luke's is proud to participate in a program where lives are saved by organ donors and families. Since January 2008, in the face of tragedy and death, 17 families at St. Luke's Hospital generously said yes to organ donation. Although everyone should consider themselves to be organ and tissue donors, the opportunity is rare. We are grateful for the generosity of families, and also for the dedicated staff who provide care and support for families through these difficult times."

Awareness During National Donate Life Month

The award presentation is part of the awareness activities undertaken in the month of April, which is National Donate Life Month. The month recognizes the critical need for organ and tissue donation, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Saving lives is a yearlong endeavor, according to Gift of Life Supervisor of Hospital Services, Kathy Yandle. "Gift of Life Donor Program - the nonprofit organ procurement organization (OPO) for eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware - works diligently every day throughout the year to provide a second chance to those awaiting a life-saving organ transplant. Public and professional education efforts highlighting the importance of organ and tissue donation are crucial in supporting this endeavor," she said.

The month is also dedicated to recognizing the tremendous generosity of organ and tissue donors, their families, transplant recipients and the healthcare professionals who enable the gift of hope through donation and transplantation, said Yandle.

Considering Organ Donation to Save a Life

Gift of Life Donor Program suggests ways to promote awareness within families and in your close friends simply by discussing organ and tissue donation. Let them know of your decision to become a donor, or even just take two minutes register online. In Pennsylvania, residents can log directly onto the Department of Transportation web site at donatelife-pa.org to sign up as a donor.

New Jersey residents can make their decision known when they renew their driver's licenses. More information may be obtained on the Donate Life New Jersey Web site, donatelifenj.org.

"Since its start in 1974, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 28,000 organ transplants and hundreds of thousands of tissue transplants. It has been a remarkable achievement to be one of the nation's leaders in transplantation, helped greatly by the exceptional generosity of the thousands of donors and donor families," said Yandle. "This success is also due to the longstanding partnerships with our hospital partners who have committed to making organ donation a priority.

"But the work is far from over," she continued. "Even though thousands of people have provided the gift of life through a commitment to organ donation, a tremendous need still exists. In the U.S., there are more than 101,000 people awaiting life-saving organ transplants, and each day 18 of those people die waiting for their opportunity. This makes it imperative to get the word out and encourage people to make a decision about donation."

For more information on organ and tissue donation, please call the Gift of Life at 1-800-DONORS1 or visit donors1.org.

Fast Facts from Gift of Life

• The HRSA Medal of Honor was established to recognize hospitals that achieved a 75 percent or more conversion rate for at least one 12-month period during the 26 month period ending in May 2008.
• Criteria for eligibility included hospitals with 8 or more potential organ donors per year.
  There were 412 winning hospitals that came from a pool off 716 hospitals that met eligibility criteria.
• During the fourth National Learning Congress held in Nashville, Tennessee. In October, St. Luke's Hospital was one of 18 hospitals from Gift of Life's region to be recognized for excellence in family care and outstanding rates of organ donation.
• St. Luke's is one of 12 of those 18 hospitals which received special recognition for achieving a 75 percent rate for four consecutive years.