Donate Life Florida Receives Contract to Improve Florida's Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) announced its selection of Donate Life Florida as the contracted vendor to create a new, state organ and tissue donor registry. Donate Life Florida is a non-profit, 501(C)(3) alliance of the state's organ, tissue and eye donor programs, dedicated to empowering Floridians to make a positive decision about organ and tissue donation.

The current registry was created in the 1990s and no longer meets the needs of the state's donor recovery programs. Donate Life Florida's proposal will create a new, Web-based registry that is accessible to the public 24/7 to register as an organ and tissue donor.

"I am registered to be an organ donor because I believe organ donors save lives," said AHCA Secretary Holly Benson. "We are thrilled to partner with Donate Life Florida because we believe that they can help ensure that organs get to the patients who need them most."

The organ, tissue and eye donor programs are the entities that access the registry to determine if someone who has passed away made a decision about donation while living. If a person designated himself to be a donor, that decision is binding.

"We are overjoyed with this news," said Karen Garcia, chairwoman of Donate Life Florida. "Florida's donor programs are committed to improving the registry. We look forward to this opportunity to create a registry that serves the public as well as the 3,500 patients currently awaiting life-saving organ transplants in Florida."

The issuance of the registry contract was the result of several years of legislation, including SB 2630, sponsored by Senator Steve Oelrich, which was signed into law in June 2008.

"Efforts to increase awareness for organ and tissue donation are surely welcomed and needed," said Senator Oelrich. "By increasing the awareness and accessibility through the registry, we will be able to save more lives."

The registry's official name will be the Joshua Abbott Organ and Tissue Donor Registry. Joshua Abbott was a lung transplant recipient who championed the cause of organ and tissue donation prior to his untimely death in 2006.

"Josh made a great impact on my life personally," said Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Larry Cretul, "and I know that if he were here with us today, he would be as thrilled as I am to see this come to fruition. Three years after his passing, with hard work from many people, we will be able to save more lives and honor the life of a truly great person."

The contract also requires Donate Life Florida to create and implement educational campaigns for various audiences, including DMV staff, students and multicultural groups that will drive enrollment on the new registry.

"We have a number of successful and award-winning educational and donor designation campaigns in place throughout the state," Garcia said. "This contract will allow us the opportunity to implement more educational initiatives to reach larger audiences."

Funding for the contract comes from voluntary contributions to the HealthCare Trust Fund, namely the dollar donation Floridians make when obtaining or renewing a driver license or vehicle tag. It is not funded through general revenue.

There is a national initiative underway within the donation community to raise the collective enrollment on all states' donor registries to 100 million or 50 percent of all driver licenses issued. The initiative, called the Donor Designation Collaborative, is spearheaded by Donate Life America, a national alliance of donor programs and corporate partners. The campaign was launched in New Orleans in October 2006 when nationwide registry enrollment was approximately 60 million. That number has since climbed to nearly 80 million.

"By making it easy to join the registry and encouraging more people to sign up, we hope to increase donation and save more lives," Garcia said.

Currently there are more than 100,000 patients listed on the national organ transplant waiting list. Of those, 3,500 are listed at transplant centers in Florida, and one of those patients dies every 35 hours, waiting for an organ that did not become available.