Our Services

Organ Pro­cure­ment

Some of the great­est med­ical advance­ments have made organ dona­tion a suc­cess­ful treat­ment for end-stage organ fail­ure, yet trans­plants would not be pos­si­ble with­out the gen­eros­i­ty of organ donors and their fam­i­lies. Our clin­i­cal team reflects this, bal­anc­ing incred­i­ble med­ical knowl­edge with care for donors and their families.

Our pro­cure­ment team works close­ly with hos­pi­tals, trans­plant cen­ters and donor fam­i­lies to help facil­i­tate this pre­cious gift. It begins with a call from one of our hos­pi­tal part­ners to our Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Cen­ter, where our staff works with the hos­pi­tal to assess patients who are at the end-of-life to see if they have the pre­cious oppor­tu­ni­ty to give the gift of life. Less than 2% of peo­ple have this incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty upon their death.

If a patient has the option to be an organ donor, one of our clin­i­cal staff will trav­el to the hos­pi­tal to meet with the fam­i­ly and dis­cuss their loved one’s abil­i­ty to save lives. If the patient made a deci­sion about dona­tion dur­ing his or her life­time, we sup­port their fam­i­ly as we hon­or his or her deci­sion. If the patient had­n’t, we ask his or her fam­i­ly to make a deci­sion about dona­tion on their behalf.

From there our clin­i­cal team works with the hos­pi­tal staff to man­age clin­i­cal activ­i­ties, coor­di­nates with the Unit­ed Net­work for Organ Shar­ing (UNOS) and trans­plant cen­ters to match the donor’s organs with wait­ing recip­i­ents, and arranges sur­gi­cal recov­ery teams. 

Tis­sue Recovery

Tis­sue dona­tion is a gift that enhances and saves approx­i­mate­ly 2.5 mil­lion lives each year. From skin dona­tion that pre­vents infec­tion and saves the lives of burn vic­tims to the dona­tion of bone to restore mobil­i­ty and pre­vent ampu­ta­tion, the gift of tis­sue is life-changing.

As a tis­sue recov­ery orga­ni­za­tion, we man­age all aspects of the tis­sue dona­tion and recov­ery process. It begins with a call from one of our hos­pi­tal or pro­fes­sion­al part­ners to our Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Cen­ter, where our staff assess­es the patient to see if they have the pre­cious oppor­tu­ni­ty to give the gift of tissue.

If a patient has the option to be a tis­sue donor, a mem­ber of our Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Cen­ter team will speak with the fam­i­ly and dis­cuss their loved one’s abil­i­ty to save and heal lives. If the patient made a deci­sion about dona­tion dur­ing his or her life­time, we sup­port their fam­i­ly as we hon­or his or her deci­sion. If they haven’t, we ask his or her fam­i­ly to make a deci­sion about dona­tion on their behalf.

Our high­ly trained tis­sue team per­forms the recov­ery and sends the donor’s tis­sue to one of our tis­sue pro­cess­ing part­ners, who care­ful­ly pre­pare it for trans­plan­ta­tion. Our tis­sue part­ners include AlloSource, Cry­oLife, LifeNet , Life­Cell, LeMaitre and Ossium. 

Pro­fes­sion­al Outreach

We proud­ly part­ner with more than 120 hos­pi­tals and hun­dreds of EMS, ME, hos­pice, and long-term care facil­i­ties to max­i­mize the num­ber of lives saved through organ and tis­sue dona­tion. Col­lab­o­ra­tion with our part­ners is crit­i­cal in order to sup­port fam­i­lies through end-of-life care and hon­or the dona­tion deci­sions of peo­ple in our communities.

Our team’s mis­sion is to main­tain suc­cess­ful dona­tion pro­grams at each orga­ni­za­tion or agency by pro­mot­ing best prac­tices, pro­vid­ing high-lev­el cus­tomer ser­vice, offer­ing pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion, and meet­ing indi­vid­ual needs. Admin­is­tra­tors, physi­cians, nurs­es, social work­ers, chap­lains along with EMS, Law Enforce­ment, Med­ical Exam­in­ers and oth­er non-hos­pi­tal med­ical pro­fes­sion­als all have cru­cial roles in the dona­tion process and we are incred­i­bly grate­ful for their partnership.

For more infor­ma­tion and resources vis­it our Pro­fes­sion­al Part­ners pages. 

Donor Fam­i­ly Care

Organ and tis­sue donors are heroes and we believe their fam­i­lies should be treat­ed with the utmost care and respect at the time of dona­tion and in the months and years fol­low­ing their loved one’s death. Our Donor Fam­i­ly Com­pan­ions are a resource for our fam­i­lies. They com­pas­sion­ate­ly pro­vide grief resources and sup­port to our donor fam­i­lies, as well as facil­i­tate poten­tial com­mu­ni­ca­tion between donor fam­i­lies and trans­plant recip­i­ents. Each year we pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for donor fam­i­lies to gath­er togeth­er and remem­ber their loved ones and the pre­cious gifts of life they so gen­er­ous­ly gave to others.

For more infor­ma­tion and resources vis­it our Donor Fam­i­ly Care pages. 

Pub­lic Outreach 

Our Pub­lic Out­reach team con­nects with com­mu­ni­ties across the state through pub­lic edu­ca­tion, spe­cial events, and media rela­tions. We believe that every­one has the right to make an informed deci­sion about organ and tis­sue dona­tion and to doc­u­ment that deci­sion dur­ing their lifetime.

We work close­ly with the Iowa Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion to pro­vide infor­ma­tion to res­i­dents apply­ing for or renew­ing their driver’s license or state ID card. We also pro­vide mate­ri­als and infor­ma­tion about dona­tion to driver’s edu­ca­tion to ensure that stu­dents who are apply­ing for their very first driver’s license have the infor­ma­tion they need to make an informed dona­tion decision.

Our vol­un­teer pro­gram is made up of an incred­i­ble group of indi­vid­u­als who ded­i­cate their time and ener­gy to sup­port­ing Iowa Donor Net­work by advo­cat­ing for dona­tion. Our vol­un­teers are ded­i­cat­ed donor fam­i­ly mem­bers, trans­plant recip­i­ents, recip­i­ent fam­i­ly mem­bers and enthu­si­as­tic com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers whose work and pow­er­ful sto­ries impact the hearts and minds of their neigh­bors. Many of our vol­un­teers staff booths at health fairs, give pre­sen­ta­tions to stu­dents and civic groups and help at spe­cial events to raise aware­ness about organ, tis­sue and eye dona­tion. They are the cor­ner­stone of our pub­lic out­reach efforts.

For more infor­ma­tion about our vol­un­teer pro­gram or to get involved, vis­it Vol­un­teer Pro­gram