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Lower Bucks Hospital Receives Platinum Award in 2021 Donate Life Challenge
Bristol, PA (July 27) – Lower Bucks Hospital is proud to announce being awarded Platinum distinction for its participation in the 2021 Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) Donate Life Hospital Challenge, which encourages hospitals to raise awareness of the importance of organ, eye, and tissue donations. Historically, HAP conducted its Donate Life Pennsylvania Hospital Challenge from January 1 to April 30 of each year.
With the COVID pandemic surging and recognizing that clinicians need to be available to assist patients battling COVID, HAP had to consider alternatives for the 2021 hospital challenge. The association conducted a virtual campaign during April in conjunction with National Donate Life Month. Even during the pandemic, hospitals showed their commitment and dedication to organ, eye, and tissue donation. In this year’s challenge, 107 hospitals participated. HAP applauds its members’ commitment to increase donation awareness and designations within their hospital and community.
Participating hospitals’ awareness and designation activities were captured on a scorecard, which was adapted for this year’s virtual format. Participating hospitals and health systems earned titanium, platinum, gold, silver, and bronze level recognitions. HAP honors those who dedicated significant effort to drawing attention to the need for organ, eye, and tissue donors and encouraging new donor registrations throughout the challenge.
“We continue to be proud to recognize the hospital community’s commitment to organ donation,” said HAP president and CEO Andy Carter. “It takes great partners like the Pennsylvania Department of Health, CORE and Gift of Life Donor Program to support this awareness project that continues to be successful each year. Organ donation is a way to honor those loved ones we have lost, while continuing their legacies through the most selfless gift.”
Lower Bucks Hospital was recently recognized for its commitment to organ, eye, and tissue donations during last year’s challenge, with Lower Bucks Hospital receiving the Platinum Award for its support of the campaign. In addition, Roxborough Memorial Hospital won Platinum and Suburban Community Hospital won Titanium Awards.
The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania’s (HAP) Donate Life Hospital Challenge is in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Center for Organ Recovery & Education and Gift of Life Donor Program.
Many thanks and congratulations to all those who helped raise awareness around this life-saving issue in the hospital and throughout the community!
A full list of hospital designations resulting from the challenge, and more information about the scoring process, can be found at HAP’s website.
For more information about becoming an organ donor, visit www.donors1.org.
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About Lower Bucks Hospital: Lower Bucks Hospital is a community hospital, serving the Lower Bucks County region with medical, surgical, and emergency care. Located in historic Bristol, Pennsylvania, the Hospital is well-known for its knowledgeable medical staff, including cardiology, orthopedics, radiology, wound care, and general surgery. The hospital has more than 200 physicians on staff, as well as another 700 employees. As part of Prime Healthcare Services, headquartered in Ontario, California, Lower Bucks Hospital is focused on becoming one of the leaders in technology. Prime Healthcare is an award-winning hospital management company operating 45 acute care hospitals in 14 states, including Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia, Lower Bucks Hospital in Bristol, and Suburban Community Hospital in Montgomery County.
About Prime Healthcare and Prime Healthcare Foundation: Prime Healthcare is an award-winning health system operating 45 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient locations in 14 states, providing over 2.6 million patient visits annually. It is one of the nation’s leading health systems with nearly 50,000 employees and physicians dedicated to providing the highest quality healthcare. Fourteen of the Prime Healthcare hospitals are members of the Prime Healthcare Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity. Based in Ontario, California, Prime Healthcare is nationally recognized for award-winning quality care and has been named a Top 10 and Top 15 Health System by IBM Watson Health. Its hospitals have been named among the nation’s “100 Top Hospitals” 58 times and have received more Patient Safety Excellence Awards from Healthgrades than any other health system in the past six years. To learn more, please visit www.primehealthcare.com
ABOUT HAP: HAP is a statewide membership services organization that advocates for nearly 240 Pennsylvania acute and specialty care, primary care, subacute care, long-term care, home health, and hospice providers, as well as the patients and communities they serve. Additional information about HAP is available online at haponline.org.
ABOUT CORE: The Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) is one of 57 federally designated not-for-profit organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the United States, serving more than five million people in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. CORE coordinates the recovery and matching of organs, tissues and corneas for transplant within their service region, and works tirelessly to create a culture of donation within the hospitals and communities they serve. CORE’s mission is to Save and Heal lives through donation, ultimately ending the deaths of those on the transplant waiting list, while maintaining integrity for the donation process, dignity for the donors, and compassion for their families. CORE is a winner of the 2019 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, a presidential award that recognizes nonprofits for their innovation and excellence. For more information, visit core.org or call 1-800-DONORS-7.
ABOUT GIFT OF LIFE DONOR PROGRAM: Gift of Life Donor Program is the non-profit, federally designated organ procurement organization, working with 128 acute care hospitals and 15 transplant centers to serve 11.3 million people in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. Thanks to its compassionate community, for the past 13 years, Gift of Life has coordinated the most organ donors in the United States. Its annual donation rate, most recently 55 organ donors- per-million-population, ranks among the highest in the world. Since 1974, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 53,500 life-saving organs for transplant, and more than 2 million tissue transplants have resulted from the generosity of donors and their families. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people, and a tissue donor can improve the lives of more than 100 others. For more information or to register, visit donors1.org.
ABOUT DONATE LIFE PENNSYLVANIA: Donate Life Pennsylvania is a collaborative initiative between the Pennsylvania departments of Health, Education and Transportation and Pennsylvania’s two organ procurement organizations, the Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) and Gift of Life Donor Program (GOL). It is funded by residents of Pennsylvania through voluntary contributions included with driver’s license renewals, vehicle registrations and state income tax filings or direct donations to the Governor Robert P. Casey Memorial Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Trust Fund in care of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Trust Fund contributions are used to educate Pennsylvanians, build awareness about the importance of organ and tissue donation, and increase the number of people who sign up to become organ donors on their driver’s license or state identification card. More information is available at donatelifepa.org or facebook.com/DonateLifePennsylvania.