PHILADELPHIA, PA – Gift of Life Donor Program – the organ procurement organization for the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware – and the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) Southeast Connect, honored St. Mary Medical Center with the 2023 Gift of Life Award on November 3, 2023. This prestigious annual award is given to a hospital with superior performance in organ donation that has either achieved a 75 percent organ donation conversion rate during the past year or that has dramatically improved their performance.
Gift of Life also recognized the following 18 Pennsylvania hospitals that achieved a 100 percent patient referral rate: Chester County Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Doylestown Hospital, Jefferson Abington Hospital, Jefferson Bucks Hospital, Jefferson Einstein Montgomery Hospital, Jefferson Frankford Hospital, Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, Lankenau Medical Center, Lower Bucks Hospital, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, Nazareth Hospital, Paoli Hospital, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, St. Mary Medical Center and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
The recipients were honored during a HAP Southeast Connect Meeting.
“This marks the fourth time in the 17-year history of the Gift of Life Award that we have honored St. Mary Medical Center for their superior performance in organ donation,” said Rick Hasz, President and CEO, Gift of Life Donor Program. “We congratulate the dedicated team at St. Mary on this achievement and celebrate the strong and sustainable culture of donation they have built by caring for donors, helping to support donor families, and working in close collaboration with our Gift of Life team throughout the donation process to save lives.”
“Our ability to provide donors and their families with a heroic legacy of saving and healing lives through donation begins with strong collaboration. Gift of Life Donor Program has the expertise, our compassionate and dedicated staff has the relationship with each family and our donor families inspire us with their extraordinary generosity,” said James L. Woodward, President and CEO of Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic. “We are grateful for this powerful partnership that transforms so many lives in our community.”
Gift of Life Donor Program
Gift of Life Donor Program is the non-profit, federally-designated organ procurement organization, working with 126 acute care hospitals and 12 transplant centers to serve 11.3 million people in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. Thanks to its compassionate community, for the past 15 years, Gift of Life has coordinated the most life-saving organs for transplant in the United States. Its annual donation rate ranks among the highest in the world. Since 1974, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 58,000 life-saving organs for transplant, and more than 2 million tissue transplants have resulted from the generosity of donors and their families. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people, and a tissue donor can improve the lives of about 100 others. For more information or to register, visit donors1.org.