Published 11/11/2007 :: The Post and Courier

Organ Transplant Nonprofit Seeks Funds for New Center

By JOHN P. McDERMOTT
The Post and Courier

LifePoint Inc. walks a delicate line in South Carolina's health care industry, one that links the dying and their survivors with sick patients awaiting organ transplants.

Business, for better or worse, is on the rise at the North Charleston-based organization, pushed along by population gains, new surgical techniques and other factors.

"The need is growing, it really is," said Nancy A. Kay, president and chief executive officer of LifePoint.

As a result, she said, one of the independent nonprofit's most pressing needs, aside from more organ donors, is more space to keep up with both the times and the increasing demands for its services.

"We've actually far outgrown our space here," Kay said last week.

Now operating in some leased offices off Leeds Avenue, LifePoint is looking to upgrade its home base to help improve its effectiveness as an organization.

The group is seeking to bankroll the project with up to $19 million in low-interest bonds that would be issued through the state's Jobs Economic Development Authority. Charleston County Council is scheduled to review the funding request at a meeting Nov. 20 as part of the public approval process.

Designs that were commissioned by LifePoint's board last year show a sleek-looking 50,000-square-foot headquarters complex on Henry Tecklenburg Drive, in the heart of West Ashley's medical district.

In addition to administrative offices, the 6.5-acre site will include a helicopter pad, clinical laboratories, conference space and operating rooms for organ, tissue and cornea recoveries. Another feature: a reflecting pool and fountain, designed as a memorial to donors.

LifePoint serves almost all of South Carolina, and is one of 58 federally authorized transplant procurement agencies blanketing the country. The groups collaborate but, by design, they operate within strict geographic boundaries.

"The federal government does not want to have competition for donors," Kay said.

LifePoint acts as an intermediary between the donor side and the 62 hospitals within its service area. A key role is to ensure donations are matched up with qualified recipients. Another is to coordinate the actual removal of the organs, tissues and corneas, "including consent" and transportation to their destination. It also works with nurses and physicians to promote donations.

While LifePoint is a nonprofit, its day-to-day challenges aren't any different from those of an ordinary business. They run from managing growth to eliminating inefficiencies to getting out the word about services.

The new headquarters will help the group address some of those issues, Kay said.

One way is that LifePoint would be able to put its entire local staff, now up to about 120 and growing, under the same roof.

The proposed in-house operating rooms will be another plus that are expected to save LifePoint money. The group now pays hospitals "a pretty good premium" to use their surgical facilities to recover organs, tissues and corneas, Kay said "Not only will it be a cost-savings factor for us ... but we won't be tying up their operating rooms like we do now," she said.

Also, the meeting space should make it easier to coordinate educational seminars for larger groups of nurses and doctors, who can influence whether LifePoint obtains consent for a donation.

"Nurses and physicians in the hospitals are absolutely critical," Kay said. "The key thing is collaboration in this donation process."

If work on the headquarters gets under way next year, it will likely open in time for LifePoint's silver anniversary in 2009. The group was established as the South Carolina Organ Procurement Agency in 1984, when it handled only kidneys. Kay, who left her job as MUSC's transplant coordinator to join the future LifePoint, made up exactly one-half of the original staff.

The nonprofit is now a fairly sizable employer with an annual budget of about $19 million. Last year it was involved in 1,869 organ, tissue and eye recoveries, up 20 percent from 2005, according to the group's annual report.

But a grim reality lurks behind the growth: About 720 South Carolinians were among the more than 98,000 U.S. residents waiting for organ transplants as of Friday.

Contact John McDermott at 843.937.5572 or jmcdermott@postandcourier.com.