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REMARKS BY:

TOMMY G. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

PLACE:

Secretary Thompson’s Remarks to the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, Dearborn, Michigan

DATE:

April 22, 2004

Celebrating the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative

Good afternoon. Thank you Dr. Betty Duke from HRSA for that kind introduction. It is such a pleasure to be here with all of you and to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first organ transplant in America. Just think about how far we’ve come in the last 50 years. Today, we have this fantastic collaborative working together to increase organ donations. I’d like to thank our co-chairs Dr. John Chessare and Teressa Shafer for being such wonderful people. I’d like to thank Tony D’Allesandro and all my fellow Badgers in working groups for being here.

There are also two other very special people I would like to acknowledge. Five years ago, Amy Luxner had open-heart surgery to remove some tumors. When they were finished with surgery, her heart didn’t start. This amazing woman spent 8 months on a heart pump at Georgetown Hospital, as the number one priority on the waiting list. Amy’s day finally came. We are all so lucky there was such a giving donor, so that Amy can be with us. Amy would you please stand up?

I would also like to introduce Susan McVey Dillion. Susan is a mother who faced the decision no parent should ever need to make. She needed to decide whether to donate her son, Michael’s organs. Michael fell while rock climbing and was on life-support at a Philadelphia hospital. He suffered irreversible brain damage, but was not clinically brain-dead. Susan agreed to donate her son’s organs and Michael became one of the nation’s first Donation After Cardiac Death donor. Susan lost her son that day, but because of her generosity 5 other sons and daughters were given a second chance at life.

Susan McVey Dillon would you please stand up so we all can thank you and recognize you?

This is why we’re here, folks: to celebrate the gift of life and to encourage our fellow Americans to give that gift.

There has never been an organ donation initiative with the scale, scope, speed and intensity of that which we are leading. For the first time in the 50 years of transplantation, teams of leaders from the nation’s largest hospitals, the nation’s organ procurement organizations, the nation’s transplant centers and the Department of Health and Human Services are coming together to improve nationwide efforts to increase organ donation.

I’d also like to thank those of you across the country who are watching via satellite. For example, the Keystone Center of the Michigan Hospital Association has teamed with their OPO to connect every large hospital in the State of Michigan to this event. I think this is great.

I am so proud, to be joined here by nearly 500 leaders from 95 of the nation’s largest hospitals and 42 of the 59 organ procurement organizations. We each have different professions, different backgrounds and come from different parts of this great Nation, but we each share one thing in common – we are each committed to improving organ donation rates.

And for those of you on satellite, I hope that if you like what you see and hear here today, if you haven’t already, you will consider joining us in the second phase of our collaborative. I often tell people, don’t take your organs to heaven, heaven knows we need them here. And heaven knows we need you and want you working with us.

Ladies and gentlemen, right now, 84,000 of our fellow Americans are on a waiting list to receive an organ donation. Seventeen of those people will die today, waiting for a transplant. Almost 500 people will die during the month of April – that’s about the number of people in this room – and 6,000 people will die this year.

It doesn’t need to be like this and thanks to your efforts – it’s improving. One organ and tissue donor, just one person, can save or enhance up to 50 other lives across America. One person really can make a difference. If you don’t believe me, just ask Amy or Susan.

GIFT OF LIFE INITIATIVE

When I became the Secretary of Health and Human Services, I launched the Gift of Life Donation Initiative within 100 days of taking office. I launched this initiative to increase donor awareness and promote donation of organs, tissue, bone marrow and blood. This initiative consists of many components, for example: the Workplace Partnership for Life which has registered close to 10,000 partners; we recently held the Women’s Summit on Organ Donation at HHS; and earlier this week I visited Banneker High School in Washington, D.C. to launch Decision:Donation, a new organ and tissue donation education program for high school students to help them make informed decisions about donation. And, this Breakthrough Collaborative is also part of the initiative. Our initiative has already had a great deal of success.

Today, I’m very pleased to report the Gift of Life Donation Initiative is working. Throughout 2003, organ donations increased from 6,187 to 6,454. Overall, that is a 4.3 percent increase. That’s incredible. This is the most significant organ donation increase since 1998. Then, if you remember, it increased because a new law required hospitals to report deaths to organ procurement organizations to determine whether organ, tissue, or eye donation was a possibility.

And 2004 is shaping up to be an even better year. January of this year broke the record for the most donors ever in a single month. In January, donations among Hispanics increased by 22 percent. And donations among African-Americans are up 28 percent. This is great news. These numbers reflect a promising trend.

And there’s more. Every year, nearly 180 donors are lost because coroners or medical examiners prevent donations from taking place. That means more than 600 people don’t receive the necessary transplant that could save their life. But this is all changing. With us today, is Dr. Michael Graham, President of the National Association of Medical Examiners. In an effort to improve the number of organ donations across the nation, Dr. Graham and his Association have established the “Goal of Zero Denials.” I thank you, Dr. Graham, for your dedication, your leadership and your passion for this issue. Our Collaborative will help in whatever way possible to ensure this goal becomes a reality.

Ladies and gentleman, through all of our success and our efforts, I believe we have finally reached the tipping point. Much like people buckling their seatbelt in a car or not smoking indoors, becoming an organ donor is finally becoming a way of life.

But it’s up to us to keep this momentum going. We still have a long way to go and I’m asking for your continued help and support. There are still more than 84,000 of our fellow Americans waiting for a transplant. Waiting for another chance at life. Can you imagine the angst of that individual and his or her family? Wondering if he or she will be one of the lucky ones to receive a transplant? Imagine the stress that puts on a family. Amy can tell you all about that stress.

CELEBRATING THE WORK OF COLLABORATIVE & TEAMS

The importance of this initiative and your work in this Collaborative to increasing the number of transplantations in this country is evident by reaching this tipping point. We launched this Collaborative last April, we put our teams together and in September we got to work. And we haven’t stopped. In just 7 short months, this Collaborative has already achieved remarkable gains. We’ve had an amazing level of momentum and we can not stop now. I am asking everyone in this Collaborative to continue your current pace of work through a third action period and fourth learning session.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement challenged all of us to track and document the results of Collaborative Teams who get on winning streaks. To do this, the Faculty created “Donor Before Non-Donor” to help all of us identify teams with successful means of achieving a long streak of donors before a non-donor. There are two teams here with extremely successful donor streaks. Both teams had a streak of 9 Donors Before a Non-Donor. That’s fantastic.

Would the following two teams please stand up:

  1. LifeCenter Northwest and Harborview Medical Center of Seattle, Washington
  2. Alabama Organ Center and Huntsville Hospital in Alabama

Let’s give them a round of applause.

In addition, there are already many other successful achievements within this Collaborative we should acknowledge.

  • Collectively, the 95 hospitals and 42 OPOs in this Collaboration have achieved an increase in the key process measure of “timely notification” from 52 percent to 83 percent.
  • Collaborative Teams have achieved an increase in the key process measure of having the Request to Donate made by an Appropriate Requester from 79 percent to 86 percent.
  • It gets even better. Seven hospital/OPO teams in this Collaborative have already achieved and sustained average Conversion Rates, or the number of eligible donors who actually become donors, of 65 to 74 percent. This is terrific and far better than the national average rate of 46 percent. I encourage you, and everyone else to continue your collective progress toward the 75 percent Conversion Rate goal through a 3rd Action Period and 4th Learning Session. I have confidence you can achieve this rate.
  • Finally, I am immensely pleased to report that 12 teams reached and sustained average Conversion Rates of 75 percent to 88 percent for the entire 7-month period of the Collaborative.

I am extremely proud to call on the following 12 teams to stand and be recognized for their extraordinary achievement for transplant recipients, donor families and for the nation:

  • St. Joseph’s Medical Center
  • Johns Hopkins Hospital
  • University of Michigan Medical Center
  • University of Iowa Hospital and Clinic
  • Sharp Grossmont Medical Center
  • Maui Memorial Medical Center
  • San Joaquin General Hospital
  • Quebec Transplant Program
  • LDS Hospital
  • Brigham and Women’s Hospital
  • Theda Clark Regional Medical Center from my home state of Wisconsin.

LAUNCHING THE “SPREAD STRATEGY”

Because of this success and the high achievement level of this collaborative, I am announcing two new components of the Gift of Life Initiative. Your hospitals have been the leaders in paving the way to a higher organ donation pool. But there are still many hospitals across the country that can and should be doing more.

The first new component of this initiative is the Spread Strategy. This is an intense, unprecedented, full-court-press effort to spread the practices and results you are already achieving to up to 200 of the largest hospitals in the nation. This includes all of you in hospitals and OPOs who are participating via satellite who have not yet joined the Collaborative. I encourage you to be a part of our spread strategy, join the 2nd Collaborative and take part in its first Learning Session this September.

This Spread Strategy will be comprised of a number of key elements.

  • Sustained support for the current Collaborative and the Leadership Coordinating Council
  • A 2nd Collaborative for up to 200 large hospitals and their OPOs.
  • Continued satellite broadcasts of these Learning Sessions.
  • A Knowledge Management System for tracking practices.
  • Support for a Cadre of more than 59 Spread Leaders in OPOs throughout the Nation.
  • And since a little extra incentive and competition never hurts, we will hold the National Learning Congress in May of 2005, and all teams with a 12-month conversion rate of 75 percent or higher, will be awarded the HHS Medal of Honor.

The Keystone Center of the Michigan Hospital Association right here in Michigan has already pledged to systematically help every large hospital in Michigan achieve the 75 percent Conversion Rate as a part of this Spread Strategy. I salute them and I encourage other leading hospitals to also take an active role in helping others achieve this rate.

LAUNCING THE 7TH ELEMENT OF THE DONATION INITIATIVE

The second new component I am announcing is the 7th Element of my Donation Initiative. This element is to systematically increase the number of organs transplanted per donor. A single donor can provide up to 8 life-saving organs, and countless tissue for others. Currently, we are recovering an average of 3.16 organs per donor. I know we can do better. I know this because those of you in the California Transplant Donor Network’s service area are already transplanting an average of 3.9 organs per donor. That’s great.

This new element includes a number of strong components.

  • A Technology Summit that we will co-sponsor with the United Network for Organ Sharing and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network this fall.
  • A Systematic Study and Benchmarking of the Practices and Technology used by Transplant Centers and OPOs who are leading the nation in organs transplanted per donor.
  • An Expert Panel of leading practitioners to vet the findings and recommendations produced by the Benchmarking Study and Technology Summit and include these findings in the OPTN Performance Guidelines.
  • And a Powerful Aim with a clear, measurable, achievable, ambitious goal.

I now invite the leaders from the United Network for Organ Sharing, the American Society of Transplantation, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the North American Transplant Coordinators Organization, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations and the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients to come forward and join me in formally signing this Aim.

Let me read the Aim to you before we all sign it. It says:

"Committed to saving or enhancing thousands of additional lives per year by maximizing the number of organs transplanted from each and every organ donor, without exception. We will maintain a thorough, steadfast focus on better use of new technology, coupled with rapid, widespread replication of proven practices and systems that result in an average of 3.75 organs transplanted from every organ donor."

Thank you.

By achieving and maintaining this aim, we will be able to perform nearly 4,000 additional organ transplants each year. I invite each of you to join with me in striving to increase organ donation rates to 75 percent, and increase the number of organs transplanted per donor.

CONCLUSION

The Gift of Life Initiative has been with me since the very beginning of me taking office. It is something I am extremely proud of and dedicated to, and I hope you are as well.

Together, we have already truly made a difference in increasing organ donations in a short period of time. We’ve brought organ donation to the tipping point and it’s up to all of us to see this through. I hope you continue with your level of passion and dedication.

You’ve helped make this country a stronger and better place. And you’ve helped give thousands of people a second chance at life. What greater gift could you possibly give?

Winston Churchill captured the essence of service to others when he said: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have already given and that which you will continue to give.

You’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll say it again. If your organs had a chance to vote - Your eyes would vote to continue to see. Your heart would vote to continue to beat in someone else’s body. And you know your kidney and liver would want to continue to eat Wisconsin cheese, drink Wisconsin beer and continue the greatness of life.

You are a wonderful group of individuals and I’m very proud to work with you on this quest. I thank all of you for your commitment, your talent, your passion, your dedication and for achieving life-saving results.

God Bless You and God Bless the United States of America.

Last Revised: April 28, 2004

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