The Veterans Administration Medical Center in Portland has reached gold in the Workplace Partnership for Life Hospital Campaign to register organ donors—the first hospital to report doing so. There is plenty of opportunity for other hospitals and transplant centers to reach gold, silver or bronze before results are due for recognition by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in June.
The campaign, launched by HRSA in June 2011, encourages hospitals and transplant centers to coordinate donor awareness and registry enrollment activities with their staff, patients, and community members. The Phase II Challenge Scorecard (available here) provides a menu of activities for hospitals to plan and allows hospitals to track their activity points toward recognition.
The Portland VA Medical Center, working with Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank, Donate Life Northwest and Lions VisionGift, held registration drives and other outreach activities at the Portland medical center and the Vancouver medical campus.
“Veterans by their nature are an inherently giving group of individuals, their service to our country being a primary example,” said Dr. Malinoski, trauma surgeon and intensivist who recommended the transplant center join the campaign. “When we became aware of the Workplace Partnership for Life Campaign, we saw an exciting opportunity to celebrate our veterans in another way. We were able to give veterans and their families, as well as VA employees, the opportunity to register as donors through a variety of events.”
Currently, there are 300 veterans at the Portland VA Medical Center awaiting kidney and liver transplants.
For information about how your hospital can participate in the campaign, visit www.organdonor.gov or email [email protected].
