On Jan. 1, 2021, the two organ procurement organizations (OPOs) affiliated under New England Donor Services (LifeChoice Donor Services and New England Organ Bank) will merge into a single OPO. The merged OPOs will retain the name New England Organ Bank and will be responsible for the recovery of organs and tissues for transplant in a combined donation service area encompassing the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and the eastern counties of Vermont. The organization will recover organs and tissues in the nearly 200 hospitals that serve the region’s approximately 14 million residents.
The two OPOs affiliated in January 2017 under New England Donor Services and remained separate OPOs.
Transplanted organs from donors in the LifeChoice service area increased by more than 108 percent since the start of the affiliation and transplanted organs from donors across the entire region have increased by 50 percent since 2015. Financial efficiencies resulting from the affiliation are estimated to have saved the donation and transplant system in excess of $3 million.
“The affiliation was created to provide more lifesaving organs to patients in need,” said Alexandra Glazier, New England Donor Services president and CEO. “By meeting the goals of that first affiliation phase, the merger will allows us to continue our efforts to do everything we can to best serve donor families, transplant centers and the transplant recipients who depend on us.”
2021 will mark NEOB’s 53rd year as a community based, nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives through the recovery of organs for transplant. Among the founders of NEOB in 1968 was Nobel laureate Joseph Murray, M.D., who performed the first successful human transplant at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1954.
