Gift of Life Donor Program

Mission statement: Gift of Life Donor Program remains dedicated to improving the quality of Life of patients awaiting transplantation by maximizing the availability of Donor organs and tissues while upholding the highest medical, legal, ethical, and fiscal standards. To achieve its mission, Gift of Life will -work in partnership with the region's hospitals and health care professionals to ensure that the family of every potential Donor is offered the opportunity to support organ and tissue donation in a compassionate, timely, informative and caring manner. Continued on schedule o. -provide educational programs and materials to positively predispose all members of the community to organ and tissue donation so that the donation is viewed as a fundamental human responsibility. -serve as a community resource by providing support for families of donors as well as Transplant recipients and their families, and -serve as a leader in the advancement of organ and tissue donation and transplantation. In addition to its ongoing community education and grant programs, and the programming for donation professionals through its affiliated Gift of Life institute, Gift of Life Donor Program continues to support Gift of Life howie's house, through its affiliate Transplant foundation, a ronald mcdonald house-type setting, where families of patients undergoing transplants at the Transplant centers in the philadelphia region are accommodated near the site of the surgery and for follow-up visits. In 2022, Gift of Life howie's house provided 8,536 lodging nights of care to Transplant patients and families, served over 28,800 meals to families through the home cook heroes Program, accumulated 1,997 hours of support from in-house volunteers, and provided 1,220 trips to and from area hospitals transporting 3,077 guests, driving 13,179 miles. Various resources for Transplant families are also available online to allow for full regional access to resources and services. Gift of Life howie's house serves as a physical reminder of the critical need for life-saving organs for transplant.gift of Life's primary exempt purpose is to coordinate organ and tissue donations, and work with 126 area acute care hospitals and 12 Transplant centers to support allocation of those gifts to the more than 5,000 people in the Gift of Life region on the Transplant waiting list. Beyond its clinical work, Gift of Life is also charged with educating the community about donation and transplantation, urging those who have not done so to designate themselves as organ and tissue donors. Organ donationgift of Life's staff of more than 300 full-time and part-time clinical and administrative personnel serves 12 area Transplant centers where heart, kidney, liver, lung and pancreas transplants are performed. In Gift of Life's region, there are more than 5,000 men, women and children awaiting a life-saving transplant.the clinical work includes coordinating the organ donation process, working as the link between donors, their families, and patients awaiting life-saving transplants. Upon referral by a hospital, the clinical team members provide timely on-site response, assessment, evaluation and coordination of potential donors as well as interacting with the family and hospital staff regarding the donation process. More than 49,000 death referrals were assessed by Gift of Life staff for potential organ or tissue donation. Gift of Life staff also generates organ Transplant candidate listings on national and local computer systems and oversees allocation of organs. In 2022, the gifts given by 690 generous organ donors allowed Gift of Life Donor Program to coordinate a total of 1,744 life-saving transplants over the course of the year. Aiding this process is the hospital services staff, which interacts with the area hospitals to provide support and education surrounding the clinical aspects of organ and tissue donation and transplantation. These personnel develop collaborative relationships with area hospitals, physicians, and nurses. Hundreds of professional and educational programs were provided in 2022. Tissue donationin addition to organ transplants a core component of Gift of Life's mission is the support of tissue donation and transplantation. Gift of Life coordinates the recovery of life-enhancing tissue, which can then be made available for Transplant for patients who are in need of corneas for sight-restoring procedures, as well as skin, tissue and bone to repair injuries. Again, Gift of Life staff collaborates with the hospital staff following the death of a patient to assess the opportunity for donation and to inform the families of their loved one's decision regarding donation, if one has been made, or to otherwise advise families of the Donor option. In 2022, Gift of Life also recovered tissue from 2,437 donors, including 1,348 musculoskeletal donors and 1,974 cornea donors. These life-enhancing donations can benefit more than 135,000 individuals, with bone donations for orthopedic and sports injuries, heart valve donations to repair life-threatening defects, skin donations for reconstructive surgery and to heal burn patients, and corneas to provide the Gift of sight.educationthe community education for Gift of Life runs the gamut of events and programs, all meant to educate the community and showcase the success that donation and transplantation brings. The majority of education is intended to move members of the community to add the organ and tissue Donor designation to their driver's license or state id card. This push occurs in each of the three states Gift of Life covers. Each state has a varying percentage of people who have done this already for the counties in Gift of Life's service area in Pennsylvania, 49 percent of licensed drivers are designated; in new jersey, that figure is 42 percent; and in Delaware, 51 percent are designated. The goal is to increase these numbers so designated individuals are in the majority in each state. Information about Gift of Life's educational activities is frequently disseminated through a variety of collateral materials, including a newsletter published three times per year, the Gift of Life news, with a circulation of more than 130,000. In addition, a monthly e-news is sent via email to more than 20,000 supporters . Gift of Life also works with more than 600 active volunteers many of whom have a direct connection with donation either as a Transplant recipient, a Donor or Donor family member, or as a family member or friend of either. This group of committed advocates also participated in a variety of online programming during the pandemic, special topic lunch and learns, region or local ambassador meetings or interest-specific groups who target either a specific cause (such as Donor family support), or work within a specific area of Gift of Life's region. Gift of Life makes a special effort to conduct education in multicultural communities, where the myths and misconceptions regarding donation are often more prevalent. There is also a significant effort to partner with members of faith communities and garner support from the variety of houses of worship in the region. Every major religion fully supports the decision to be an organ Donor, citing it as the highest form of generosity and compassion. Gift of Life also continued its focus on youth education through synchronous and asynchronous virtual programs, which included the participation of 56 schools from de, pa, and nj. These high school programs reached 8,645 students in 2022. The goal of the Program is to educate adolescents about organ and tissue donation before they are faced with making the decision to register as a Donor. During 2022 Gift of Life continued its participation in the otda education project- working with the pa departments of health and education to incorporate an organ and tissue donation toolkit into school curriculums across the state.implementation sites included nine schools from the Gift of Life region which were selected to receive grants to do more comprehensive programming that can then be replicated throughout the state. The annual spring institute that brings together educators from across Pennsylvania to discuss best practices to promote organ and tissue donation and transplantation in secondary school curriculums was not held due to the pandemic. In addition, Gift of Life offered a college challenge that awarded prizes to four of the 17 participating student groups for orchestrating communications and events to encourage organ Donor registration.