For Release:  Immediate (Wednesday, November 22, 2006)

Contact:          Lauren Quinn                                    Collin Parker
                       Center for Donation & Transplant      Fletcher Allen Health Care
                       (518) 262-9543                                    (802) 847-2886
 

 
ALBANY, N.Y. – This Monday, a representative from the Albany-based Center for Donation & Transplant (CDT) will present Fletcher Allen Health Care’s Chief Operating Officer Angie Marano with the hospital’s second straight Medal of Honor, for achieving an outstanding 100% conversion rate in organ donation.  The awards are given each year by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Bill McTague, CDT’s director of Clinical Operations, will present the medal at a luncheon honoring Fletcher Allen’s organ donation and transplant team on Monday, November 27, at 11:30 a.m. in the Fletcher Building.

The medal was awarded to CDT and to Fletcher Allen at the 2nd Annual Organ Donation National Learning Congress in New Orleans last month, an event that honored hospitals across the nation that0 had achieved an annual conversion rate of 75% or higher.  The conversion rate is the percentage of people who actually become organ donors out of all the potential organ donors in a hospital.

During the period of January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2005, 100% of families who were asked at Fletcher Allen Health Care to donate their loved one’s organs agreed.  Thanks to these families’ generosity, 35 organs were recovered and transplanted from these donors, benefiting 32 recipients.  The average conversion rate nationally is around 59 percent; which means that 59 percent of all families in the U.S. give consent when asked to donate their loved one’s organs.

“This is a recognition of the generosity of the Vermont community,” said Antonio Di Carlo, M.D., chief of the division of Transplantation Surgery and Immunology at Fletcher Allen.  “It is a credit to the people that we serve to see them overcome their personal losses and heroically reach out to impact the lives of their neighbors.  It is also remarkable to see how much the people here believe in the gift of life and how diligently they work to make organ donation and transplantation in Vermont such a success.”

There are currently over 92,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant in the United States.  On average, 19 people die every day due to the lack of available organs for transplant.

About the Center for Donation & Transplant
The Center for Donation and Transplant coordinates the retrieval of donor organs and tissue at more than 47 hospitals in New York and Vermont.  CDT ensures that the option of donation is offered to the family in an informative and compassionate manner, and provides long-term support and comfort to families and hospital personnel involved in the donation process.

About Fletcher Allen Health Care
Fletcher Allen Health Care, in alliance with the University of Vermont College of Medicine, is Vermont's only academic medical center and one of 125 in the country. Founded in 1995, through the merger of Fanny Allen Hospital, Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, and University Health Center, Fletcher Allen Health Care serves one million people in Vermont and northern New York. The organization provides care at more than 40 sites and 100 outreach clinics, programs, and services in the region.

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