HHS Recognizes Hospitals with Highest Organ Donation Rates

Ten South Carolina hospitals were among 392 hospitals nationwide that received awards in October from The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for success in increasing organ donation rates at their facilities.

The S.C. hospitals honored by HHS are: Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), Roper Hospital - Charleston, Trident Medical Center - Charleston, Providence Hospital - Columbia, Palmetto Health Richland, Greenville Memorial Hospital, St. Francis Health System – Greenville, Grand Strand Regional Medical Center – Myrtle Beach, Spartanburg Regional Medical Center and Lexington Medical Center. All were recognized during the Third National Learning Congress on Organ Donation and Transplantation held in Nashville, Tenn., on October 9-10.

Hospital executives, together with their partners in 57 federally-designated organ procurement organizations (OPOs), received the Department's Medal of Honor for Organ Donation for achieving and sustaining a donation rate of 75 percent or more of eligible donors. (Three of every four medically eligible organ donors actually became donors.)

Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, Greenville Memorial Hospital and the Medical University of South Carolina were recognized with the “3Pete” award for sustaining a 75% conversion rate three years in a row.
LifePoint was among 22 organ procurement organizations in the U.S. that received Improvement Leader Awards for having a 75% conversion rate in their Donation Service Area (DSA) for any consecutive 12-month period from August 2005 – June 2007.

Traci Adams, LifePoint Director of Hospital Development, said, “We are proud to collaborate with our South Carolina hospitals in honoring people’s final wishes to be organ and tissue donors. This national recognition is confirmation that working collaboratively, we can have increasingly more donors. Most importantly, having more donors means saving increasingly more lives.”