Lifelink Foundation Inc

Programs: Lifelink foundation organ procurement organizationslifelink of georgia facilitates organ and tissue recovery in the state of georgia as well as two counties in south carolina, aiken and edgefield counties. Lifelink of florida facilitates organ and tissue recovery in 15 florida counties, hillsborough, pinellas, hernando, pasco, polk, manatee, desoti, glades, highlands, sarasota, charlotte, hardee, lee, hendry and martin counties. (continued on schedule o)lifelink of puerto rico facilitates organ and tissue recovery in puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands. In each of these service areas, life-saving donation requires the support of many community partners, including hospitals, medical examiners, coroners, and funeral homes. For example, lifelink opos partnered with 63 donor hospitals in florida, 186 in georgia and 59 in puerto rico. There are 412 coroners, five medical examiner offices and three georgia bureau of investigations in georgia, and eight medical examiner districts in florida, along with the institute of forensic medicine in puerto rico. During the lifelink foundation fiscal year beginning july 1, 2016 and ending june 30, 2017, 1,854 organs were recovered for transplant from 614 organ donors. The percentage of recovered donors on their state's organ and tissue donor registry is reflected with the recovered organ donor (rod) and recovered tissue donor (rtd) share, which increases annually and reflects the lifelink commitment to creating a donation friendly community through public education about donation. Additional highlights of the 2016-2017 fiscal years for lifelink foundation opos include a record number of hospital partners which worked with lifelink to educate their communities about the importance of organ and tissue donation. Altogether, 161 hospitals in florida, georgia and puerto rico partnered with lifelink and received recognition in the form of platinum, gold, silver or bronze medals awarded during the hospital workplace partnership for life, a program of the united states department of health and human services, division of transplantation health resources & services administration (hrsa) to increase donor designations across the country. This represents a 16% increase over the number of medals winners last year, and platinum winners increased 67%. Other public education efforts to promote organ and tissue donation include traditional and social media outreach. During this year, lifelink foundation participated in 167 media stories with a potential reach of 64. 9 million people. Social media channels boasted 36,956 facebook fans, which is a 36% increase over the previous year, 2,223 twitter followers a 60% increase, and 842 instagram followers. The results of public education efforts are clear in donor designation rates (ddr), which represent the rate at which individuals who are offered the option to register as a donor do so, and donor designation share (dds), the percentage of the adult population registered as an organ and tissue donor. Note: the donor registry in puerto rico is the youngest in the country at only seven years old, and is growing rapidly. In florida and georgia, the vast majority of donor designations took place during driver license transactions through state and local driver license issuing offices. In fact, 84% of registrations in florida, and 89% of georgia registrations occurred within the driver license transaction process. Fourteen percent (14%) of florida registrations and 9% of georgia registrations happened through a national registration application, and 1-1. 5% of registrations occurred online or in person. In puerto rico, those percentages are much different, with 69% of donor registrations being handled in person at events, 24% through driver license transactions and 7% online. Many of the lifelink public education efforts required the support of volunteers. During the 2016-2017 fiscal year, 338 active volunteers gave more than 11,500 volunteer hours. Three volunteers won the presidential volunteer medal for service in excess of 100 volunteer hours, and the percentage of lifelink volunteers with tenure of more than five years was 68%.

lifelink tissue banklifelink tissue bank distributed 47,490 allografts to seven different countries to help patients in need of transplantation therapy. This translated to 13,322 orders processed by staff. Tissue bank staffs also worked with 15 corporate partners to provide expanded placement of bone and tissue allografts. The lifelink tissue bank is exceptionally proud to impact the lives of patients in need domestically and abroad.

lifelink transplantation immunology laboratoryduring the 2016-2017 fiscal year, the lifelink transplantation immunology laboratory facilitated 728 lifesaving transplants for the eight transplant centers served, including tampa general hospital in tampa, florida, largo medical center in largo, florida, johns hopkins all children's hospital in st. Petersburg, florida, cleveland clinic florida in weston, florida, broward health in fort lauderdale, florida, memorial regional hospital and joe dimaggio children's hospital in hollywood, florida and gulf coast medical center in ft. Myers, florida. They also evaluated 82 living donors and 782 deceased donors, and conducted nearly 26,500 pre- and post- transplant tests.

research & developmentthe primary goal at lifelink is to recover organs and tissue for transplant therapy to help waiting patients in need. However, for those recovered organs that cannot be transplanted, the centers for medicare and medicaid services dictate research options be considered. Lifelink proactively implemented research activities and established a research and development department. The result has been a 258% increase in organs placed for research to help further medical science, contruction of two research laboratories at lifelink headquarters in tampa and multiple requests to partner with lifelink on research projects that are made through an online portal. Lifelink is an extraordinary organization with an inspiring mission, which is never more evident than when taking a peek behind the scenes to understand how so much is accomplished annually towards saving and improving lives of patients in need, and in support of grieving families whose loved ones have made the decision to give life as organ and tissue donors. Of 448 full-time employees, half have tenure of more than ten years. Staff works around the clock, 24-hours-a-day, every day. In addition to leadership, clinical staff, public and professional education staff and administrative employees, communications services staff answered nearly 76,000 telephone referrals that could have resulted in organ or tissue donation each year, and information systems maintained technology support and security all day, every day. Lifelink foundation has eight facilities in florida, georgia and puerto rico for a total of 201,162 square feet of space to be maintained, in addition to 25 fleet vehicles to keep staff on the go, and all of this coordinated by in-house facilities personnel. In every action, lifelink has the highest ethical standards in line with our seven element corporate compliance program policies and procedures, oversight, education and training, reporting, enforcement and discipline, auditing and monitoring and response and prevention. The result of nearly 500 people working together towards the same goal, is success and synergy and, most important, lives saved.