– Hospital Challenge Aims to Increase Public Awareness and Organ Donor Designations –

Pittsburgh, August 13, 2014 – The Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) is pleased to recognize 25 hospitals across its Pennsylvania service area for their participation in the 2014 Pennsylvania Donate Life Hospital Challenge. The challenge, an initiative of the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania (HAP), took place from Feb. 28 to May 14 and aims to increase public awareness and organ donor designations within a health care setting.  Each activity, which ranges from distributing donation materials to adding awareness messages to employee paystubs, is assigned a point value. Participants strive to achieve platinum, gold, silver and bronze level totals.

“We are pleased to congratulate our Pennsylvania-based hospital partners that met the challenge and did some fantastic work.  We’d like to thank everyone who promoted this wonderful program and helped us to inspire organ donation awareness,” said Susan Stuart, president and CEO of CORE.  “Last year alone, organ donors made more than 28,000 transplants possible. Let’s hope that our work with the 2014 Donate Life Hospital Challenge can help to save more lives this year.”

The following Pennsylvania-based hospitals were recognized:

• Conemaugh Health System (Platinum)
• Meadville Medical Center (Platinum)
• Allegheny General Hospital (Gold)
• Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC (Gold)
• Corry Memorial Hospital (Gold)
• Magee-Women’s Hospital of UPMC (Gold)
• Penn Highlands Elk Regional (Gold)
• Penn Highlands DuBois (Gold)
• Robert Packer-Guthrie (Gold)
• Saint Vincent Hospital (Gold)
• St. Clair Hospital (Gold)
• UPMC Hamot (Gold)
• UPMC Mercy (Gold)
• UPMC Presbyterian (Gold)
• UPMC Shadyside (Gold)
• Forbes Regional Hospital (Silver)
• Jefferson Hospital (Silver)
• Penn Highlands Brookville (Silver)
• UPMC Altoona (Silver)
• UPMC East (Silver)
• UPMC Passavant (Silver)
• VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (Silver)
• Chambersburg Hospital (Bronze)
• UPMC Bedford (Bronze)
• UPMC McKeesport (Bronze)

About CORE

The Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) is one of 58 federally designated not-for-profit organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the United States.  CORE works closely with donor families and designated health care professionals to coordinate the surgical recovery of organs, tissues and corneas for transplantation.  CORE also facilitates the computerized matching of donated organs and placement of corneas.  With headquarters in Pittsburgh and an office in Charleston, West Virginia, CORE oversees a region that encompasses 155 hospitals and almost six million people throughout western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Chemung County, NY.  For more information, visit www.core.org or call 1-800-DONORS-7.