Hidden behind some inconspicuous double doors on the fifth floor of Rush University Medical Center is a new medical unit of a very different kind.
This is a unit for patients who save lives despite having no hope of survival themselves.
The Gift of Hope Organ Donation Care Center in Rush is the first of its kind in Illinois. The center accepts patients from area hospitals who have been diagnosed as brain dead and approved to donate their organs. At the center, doctors and nurses maintain the function of the donor's organs and ultimately source the organs so they can be shipped to the more than 104,000 people currently on the organ waiting list in the U.S. The center accepted its first organ donor on Sunday.
Officials at the center say this is a more efficient way to retrieve organs and will save more lives.
“This will lead to an increase in organ transplants,” said Lisa Hinsdale, director of organ operations for Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network, a nonprofit that handles organ recovery from deceased donors in two-thirds of northern Illinois and Lake County, Indiana.
“If we can provide one more organ for every transplant patient, that takes one more person off the waiting list,” Hinsdale said. According to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, 17 people die each day while waiting for an organ transplant.
Currently, when someone in the Chicago area is declared brain dead, Gift of Hope evaluates them to see if they are medically eligible for organ donation. Available organs include the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys and intestines. According to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, fewer than 1% of people die in a state where an organ can be donated. The most common causes are people who have suffered a stroke, heart attack or severe head injury, according to the National Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the U.S. organ transplant system.
If a patient is eligible to donate, Gift of Hope specialists will sit down with the patient's family to explain the process and ensure the patient is a legally registered donor, or that the family has given permission for organ donation in the case of unregistered donors. If a patient is able to donate, they will typically remain in the hospital where they died, and it is up to the hospital to keep them in intensive care throughout the process.
Gift of Hope enters information about donors into a national computer system that matches their organs with people on a national waiting list, then surgeons travel to the hospital (sometimes from other parts of the country) to remove the organs and transport them elsewhere.
It's a complicated process that takes about 60 hours from start to finish and can put a strain on area hospitals, Gift of Hope leaders say. When an organ donor dies at an area hospital, the hospital often has to keep the donor in an intensive care unit bed until the organ is retrieved, leaving less space for other patients. Hospitals must make time in their operating room schedules for the organ removal surgery, which can be delayed as hospitals prioritize emergency surgeries. They also have to accommodate multiple surgeons and teams traveling to the hospital to retrieve organs for patients.
The new center aims to streamline that process.
“By transferring donors to the organ care center, we hope to relieve some of the pressure on the referring hospitals,” said Mike Harmon, vice president of organ operations at Gift of Hope. The center is a collaboration between Gift of Hope and Rush, with Rush providing the space and services such as the pharmacy, lab and respiratory care. Both groups provide staff. Rush decided to partner with Gift of Hope because it felt the center aligned with Rush's mission and values, said Dr. Eddie Chang, chief of transplant surgery at Rush.
Gift of Hope and Rush will now transport organ donors from area hospitals to the center, where Gift of Hope and Rush nurses and advanced physicians will care for them until surgery. Hospitals that perform their own transplants, such as Northwestern Memorial, Loyola University Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center, will not transport patients to the unit.
Rush Hospital's new 10,000-square-foot space includes six medical bays specially configured for the needs of donors, including ventilators, cardiac monitors and other equipment, as well as space to store waste from procedures like dialysis.
The center has two operating rooms, one of which is nearly twice the size of a normal operating room, with room for 40 to 50 medical workers at a time if a donor has multiple organs. In the enormous theater, dangling lights hang above the operating tables, a machine that makes sterile ice is constantly on hand, and metal tables are used to package organs before they are transported out of the room and delivered to patients around the country.
Gift of Hope and Rush leaders say the center will also be a better place for families, who can choose to say goodbye to their loved ones before they are transported to the donor care center or accompany them there if they choose. Each medical bay at the center will be equipped with a couch that visitors can use if families want to be with their donors.
Across the hall, a small, bright waiting room is designated for donor families, offering a quiet place to sit surrounded by large windows overlooking the United Center.
“These families have been through so much,” said Dr. Harry Wilkins, president and CEO of Gift of Hope, “and some will want to come, and if they do, we want to respect their needs and their loved ones.”
Donor care units are a growing part of the United States organ transplant system.
In 2022, a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Achieving Equity in Organ Transplantation recommended that the federal government require each organ procurement organization in the country to establish a donor care unit.
“Donor care units are an innovation in organ procurement, offering an opportunity to bring consistency and high-quality care to donor organ procurement and the donor family care experience,” the report authors wrote.
The same report noted that St. Louis' organ donation care unit recovered 6% to 18% more organs between 2009 and 2014 than the national average for organs retrieved by hospitals.
The U.S. organ transplant system has faced controversy in recent years. In 2023, Congress passed a bill that became law to reform the system following allegations of inefficiency and negligence. This month, a House subcommittee held a hearing on the bill's progress and heard startling anecdotes about the system's problems. In July, the Tribune ran a story detailing how the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network's algorithm was supposed to help distribute lungs more equitably, but flaws in the process meant some people didn't get the care they should have.
Wilkins said Rush's donor care center is a move in the right direction.
“The system is not perfect, or there wouldn't be 100,000 people waiting for organs,” Wilkins said. “We're still evolving, and this is another step in that evolution.”
To register as an organ donor, Life Goes OnCall 1-800-210-2106 or visit an Illinois Secretary of State facility.
