Arizona’s Organ Recovery Organization Captures Four National Awards
Donor Network of Arizona received four Pinnacle Awards from Donate Life America on Oct. 20.

 

PHOENIX— Donor Network of Arizona (DNA), the state’s federally designated, nonprofit organ recovery organization, earned several distinctions at Donate Life America‘s Annual Meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Donate Life America received more than 50 submissions from 28 organ recovery organizations from across the country and awarded DNA four out of a total of 10 awards.

Swipe to Donate Life, the first-of-its-kind technology for registering people as organ, eye and tissue donors, received the Game Changer Award and was the winner of the Miscellaneous category.

The Swipe technology was developed through a partnership with Countermind, LLC and registers individuals as donors with a swipe or scan of a driver’s license. The swipe or scan populates the preprogrammed fields with the registrant’s information, including name, address and birth date. After the registrant verifies their information and accepts the terms, they are added to the DonateLifeAZ Registry in real-time via a Wi-Fi access point. The technology saved DNA more than 200 hours of data entry in 2014 alone.

Winning Best Remix Award was DNA’s 2014 Campus Challenge, a campaign which registers college students as organ, eye and tissue donors. The highlight of this campaign was DNA’s call to have students “Make YOLO mean more,” in which the popular phrase, “You Only Live Once” transformed to “Your Organs Live On.” The 2014 Campus Challenge registered just under 3,000 Arizona college students as organ, eye and tissue donors.

Finally, DNA’s Health Care for Hope campaign, which involved more than 50 Arizona hospitals and health care organizations in registering their communities as donors, received the Hospital Pinnacle Award. The 2014 Health Care for Hope campaign registered nearly 6,000 Arizonans as donors.

In Arizona, more than 54 percent of the adult population is registered as organ, eye and tissue donors, just above the national average. Last year, Arizonans saved 427 lives, gave sight to more than 1,000 people and healed tens of thousands through their generous gifts of donation.

Arizonans can sign up as registered organ, eye and tissue donors when they apply for or renew their driver’s license or ID at the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD). They can also become donors by signing up online at DonateLifeAZ.org or calling 1-800-94-DONOR.

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