Frankford Hospital - Torresdale Campus was named as one of sixteen area hospitals, in collaboration with Gift of Life Donor Program, the region’s nonprofit organ procurement organization, who was recently awarded Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Medals of Honor for outstanding rates of organ donation.

The medals, awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) at the First Annual Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative National Learning Congress on May 18-19 in Pittsburgh, were conferred to hospitals for achieving life-saving organ donation rates of 75% or higher for a 12-month period. The medal also honored hospitals who demonstrated exemplary leadership and commitment to organ donors, donor families, and the nearly 88,000 patients on the national transplant waiting list. Only three percent of hospitals across the country have been identified to receive this award.

This special recognition is part of the National Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, a nationwide initiative launched in 2003 to save and enhance thousands of lives a year by spreading known best practices to the nation’s largest hospitals and to achieve organ donation rates of 75% or higher in these hospitals. In our region, area hospitals demonstrated their commitment to the goals of the collaborative and in partnership with Gift of Life Donor Program, helped to coordinate 1,134 life-saving organs for transplant from 387 individuals.

Gift of Life Donor Program is a nonprofit organ procurement organization that coordinates organ and tissue donation and transplantation in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware.

For more information, please call Gift of Life Donor Program at 1-800-DONORS-1, or visit the Web site at www.donors1.org .