Fact Sheet
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan 13, 2006 |
Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343
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Organ Donation
Overview: In November 2005, more than 90,000 people were waiting for the gift of life that is only possible
through organ donation. And in 2004, an average of 18 people died each day while waiting for transplants. These
statistics are alarming, but the outlook is encouraging. In 2004, nearly 26,984 Americans received an organ
transplant, setting a new national record. More lives than ever before are being saved through organ donation and
the lives of many more are enhanced/or saved through tissue and bone marrow donation.
HHS' Division of Transplantation, located within the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Healthcare
Systems Bureau, uses a budget of $59.7 million to administer and oversee the nation�s organ, and bone marrow donation and
transplantation programs. The Division administers several Federal contracts:
Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) operates the national registry of patients waiting for
organ transplants and the organ placement center that matches donors and recipients.
Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) collects and analyzes data on all recipients of kidney,
pancreas, kidney-pancreas, liver, intestine, heart, lung, and heart-lung transplants.
National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) operates a registry of volunteer bone marrow donors and cord blood
units and matches patients with the best donor or cord blood unit available.
Working with other components within HHS, the Division also conducts public and professional education initiatives that are
achieving impressive results in donation and transplantation.
In 2001, HHS launched the Gift of Life Donation Initiative, a national campaign to encourage and enable Americans to become
organ and tissue, bone marrow and blood donors. A key part of the Initiative, the "Workplace Partnership for Life," joins
employers, unions and other employee organizations in a nationwide network to promote donation. To date, more than 10,750
workplaces across the country have joined the Partnership. Other Initiative activities include the creation of a model
organ and tissue donor card and a national medal to honor the families of organ donors.
The Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, created in April 2003 by HHS, together with key leaders and practitioners
from the Nation�s transplantation and hospital communities, is making impressive progress in raising organ donation rates.
Launched in September 2003 as part of the Gift of Life Initiative, the Collaborative aims to maximize organ donation rates
from people who die in the Nation�s largest hospitals. Those efforts will, in turn, cause the number of life-saving
transplant operations to rise. HRSA staff, together with hospital leaders, transplantation programs and organ
procurement organizations, work in collaborative teams to identify and share �best practices� to achieve organ
donation rates of 75 percent of higher.
In less than a year and a half, the Collaborative has sparked record-breaking increases in donation. To date, 184 of these
large hospitals � more than a third of the nation�s total number of such institutions � have reached or exceeded the 75
percent donation rate. As a result of this work, organ donation increased by an unprecedented 10.8 percent in 2004 over
2003, and donation in 2005 is running more than 7 percent higher than the record-breaking 2004 increases.
A second Collaborative initiative currently under way will build upon this success by increasing the number of organs
transplanted per donor. In 2004, an average of 3.06 organs were recovered and transplanted from each organ donor out of a
possible 8 organs. The aim of the second Collaborative is to increase that number to 3.75. When combined with the gains of
the first Collaborative, this second initiative could double the number of transplants annually, saving or enhancing thousands
more lives every year.
Other initiatives designed to increase public awareness of the critical need for donation include:
National Donor Sabbath observed its 10th anniversary in 2005. HHS encourages faith communities throughout
the nation to observe the National Donor Sabbath two weeks before Thanksgiving. Faith leaders discuss donation
and transplantation during worship services, and houses of worship provide activities to increase awareness of
the critical need for donors.
Decision: Donation�A School Program That Gives the Gift of Life was created as a model instructional
package for high schools to educate the nation's youth about the importance of organ and tissue donation and
the need to make an informed decision about whether to be donors and share their donation wishes with their families.
"The Bottom of Your Heart" (NMDP) is a short play (available at www.organdonor.gov/bottom_of_your_heart_play.htm )
for school or community organ donation campaigns. Written for teen audiences and featuring three teen-age
characters, it is short and easy to produce and does not require costumes, scenery, or props.
In 2005, the U.S. Congress asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review options for a national, centralized system
for the collection, distribution and use of cord blood. The IOM recommended that HHS establish a new National
Cord Blood Registry and that HRSA identify an organization to operate cord blood banking and allocation nationwide.
For additional information on HRSA's donation and transplantation programs, visit www.hrsa.gov/osp/dot/dotmain.htm.
To learn more about being an organ and tissue donor, visit www.organdonor.gov
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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.
Last Revised: February 2, 2006
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