Saving Lives One Organ at a Time

Maricopa Medical Center: A vital link between organ donors and recipients - February 14, 2005

Every day, an average of 17 people die waiting for a life-saving organ transplant that doesn't come. The physicians, nurses and staff at Maricopa Medical Center are working to change that.

In partnership with Donor Network of Arizona, Maricopa Medical Center is one of the 200 largest hospitals in the nation to participate in the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative. (see Collaborative background below)

The Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative works to improve the process of identifying potential organ donors for both local and national recipients. Since January 2004, 12 organ donors have been identified at Maricopa Medical Center. That in turn provided a total of 41 organs. The result is simple; 41 lives were saved.

Due to this great success, Maricopa Medical Center currently holds a 75% conversion rate. The conversion rate is the percentage of potential donors who convert, or become, actual organ donors. To put this into perspective, the national conversion rate for donation is currently only about 46 percent. The Arizona conversion rate for donation in 2004 was 55 percent. The organ conversion rate at Maricopa Medical Center has increased from 29% in 2003 to 75% as of January 2005.

In the United States, there are over 86,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant and almost 1100 of those are located in Arizona. The lack of viable organs available for donation and transplantation has become a health care crisis on a national scale and is one that we can change through this Collaborative.

For more information on becoming an organ and tissue donor or about the collaborative effort, contact Donor Network of Arizona at 1-800-447-09477 or online at www.dnaz.org.

BACKGROUND = Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative
In April 2003, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson joined with key national leaders and practitioners from the nation's organ procurement, transplant, and hospital communities to launch the first of its kind, Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative. The mission of the collaborative is to spread best practices in organ donation to the nation's largest hospitals. Secretary Thompson has challenged these institutions to achieve a 75 percent (or higher) organ conversion rate.

Last updated on October 7, 2008