Piedmont Atlanta Hospital is partnering with LifeLink of Georgia to create a dedicated Organ Recovery Center, according to a press release. The ORC, which will be the first of its kind in the state and the fifth in the nation, is expected to create an innovative organ recovery process that leads to improved donation and transplantation outcomes, increased efficiency and reduced costs.
According to LifeLink, more than 5,000 Georgians are waiting for a transplant. Each year, almost 1,000 Georgians who were listed for transplant at some time die without getting one, often because they have waited so long that they are too sick to survive the surgery.
“One of the struggles in transplantation is that there just aren’t enough organs for everyone who needs them,” said Dr. Jonathan Hundley, Surgical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at Piedmont Transplant Institute. “There are three ways to increase the number of organs available: Convince people to become living donors, increase consent rates for deceased donors and increase the number of organs transplanted from each authorized deceased donor.”
The ORC will focus on increasing the number of organs that can be recovered and transplanted from authorized deceased donors. “By implementing more uniform management of the donor, we can improve the number of transplantable organs per donor,” Dr. Hundley said.
Increasing the number of organs that can be transplanted from donors is a way to fully honor each donor’s gift.
In addition to saving more lives, having an ORC can also help improve the quality of life for transplant recipients by making the process from organ recovery to transplantation quicker, reducing the amount of time between recovery of an organ and transplantation. In many cases, organs perform better, and patients have better outcomes, if that timeframe is shorter.
During calendar year 2019, Piedmont surgeons transplanted 274 kidneys (164 from deceased donors and 110 from living donors), 129 livers (122 from deceased donors and seven from living donors) and 12 pancreata.
Thanks to the generosity of 344 organ donors and their families, LifeLink of Georgia provided a record number of organs for transplant during a calendar year, with 1,039 organs transplanted during 2019. This marks the most organ donors facilitated by LifeLink of Georgia, with a nearly 16% increase over last calendar year.
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