“We are already excellent.
We need to be excellent everywhere.”
Maureen Biosgnano, COO
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
2005 Organ Donation National Learning Congress
About the Collaborative
One of the Nation's most pressing public health issue is the widening gap between the supply and demand for organs and tissue. To raise awareness about the vital importance of organ and tissue donation to the Nation's health and to increase donation rates, the Department of Health and Human Services initiated the Gift of Life Donation Initiative in April 2001. The purpose of the collaborative is to generate significant, measurable increases in organ donation by helping the national community of organ procurement organizations and hospitals to quickly identify, learn, adapt, replicate and celebrate "breakthrough" practices that are associated with higher donation rates. Furthermore, it is designed to enhance the understanding of existing knowledge as well as contribute new and vital information about increasing organ donation rates. In particular, the goals of the collaborative are:
- To increase the conversion rate of eligible donors from the current average of 43 percent to 75 percent in the Nation's 300 largest hospitals
- To increase donations by up to 1,900 donors per year
- To increase the number of transplantations by 6,000 per year
- To help save the lives of thousands of people each year and prevent up to 19 deaths per day
In February and September, 2006 more than 200 healthcare professionals representing 35 Northeast Ohio hospitals came together to learn the principles behind HRSA’s widely successful National Breakthrough Collaborative.
One of the principles behind the Collaborative is that success is “all about the ones.” In part, because of these collaborative efforts, we have gathered resources or “one things” local hospitals have implemented in an effort to reach the donation and transplantation goals for Northeast Ohio.
2007 Northeast Ohio Goals
- 75% conversion rate
- 3.75 organs recovered per donor
- 10% DCD donors