St. John’s Receives Awards For Organ Donation Program
Joplin, Mo. – St. John’s Regional Medical Center’s organ donation program received the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HRSA) 2008 Medal of Honor for Organ Donation at an award ceremony held in Nashville, TN. on October 24. This is the fourth consecutive year St. John’s has won the Medal of Honor.
The award was presented to 413 of the nation’s largest hospitals for achieving organ donation consent rates at or above 75 percent over a 12 month period. In addition to the Medal of Honor, St. John’s was recognized for achieving a high standard for its average organ transplantation per donor rate. St. John’s is one of only 85 hospitals in the country to achieve this goal.
In response to the national shortage of transplantable organs, St. John’s joined HRSA’s Breakthrough Collaborative in 2003. The collaborative is intended to increase access to transplantable organs through a relationship between hospitals and organ procurement organizations. The collaborative will help identify more eligible organ donors, honor donors’ intentions for donation and implement procedures to transfer organs to waiting recipients.
Midwest Transplant Network and St. John’s have partnered to provide the best organ and tissue donation services in the community. Together they have built donation collaborative teams with members from both institutions. The teams strive to set goals, focus on education, perform more accurate data analysis and identify methods to consistently improve and maintain donation services available in Southwest Missouri.
The Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) recognized all Medal of Honor recipients, including St. John’s at its annual convention earlier this month. MHA honored St. John’s in 2007 with the Donate Life Award for its organ procurement efforts.
Midwest Transplant Network is an organ procurement organization. Founded in 1973, its mission is to provide quality transplantation-related services that will maximize the availability of organs and tissues to the community. The not-for-profit corporation serves Kansas and the Western two-thirds of Missouri.