WHAT: Donate Life America and UPMC are collaborating on a first-of-its-kind online community aimed at increasing living donor transplant awareness to save lives. The initiative recently launched with the activation of the Donate Life America/UPMC Living Donor Transplant Facebook page, the first step in creating a social space for patients, donors and prospective donors to connect, get educated and share their stories.

 

WHY: More than 120,000 men, women and children are in need of a lifesaving organ transplant. More than 28,000 people receive a transplant in the U.S. each year, including more than 6,000 from living donors. Although 90 percent of Americans say they support organ donation, only 52 percent are registered donors, and even fewer understand the benefits of kidney and liver transplants from living donors.  

 

 

• John Innocenti, president, UPMC Presbyterian

• David Fleming, president and chief executive officer, Donate Life America

• Abhinav Humar, M.D., chief of transplantation, UPMC

• Christopher Hughes, M.D., surgical director, liver transplantation, UPMC

• George Mazariegos, M.D., chief of pediatric transplantation, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC

• Donya McCoy, mother of Kennedy, who received a successful living donor liver transplant at Children’s Hospital after reaching out to the public on Facebook for a donor (available via FaceTime)

 

 

WHERE: LHAS Auditorium, UPMC Montefiore, 3459 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, 15213