New Organ Donor Care Unit Opens at M Health Fairview | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
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New Organ Donor Care Unit Opens at M Health Fairview

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Published  April 11, 2025 6:12pm CDT
Health Care
FOX 9

M Health Fairview opens new donor care unit

M Health Fairview is opening a new donor care unit in Minneapolis on Monday. FOX 9's Tim Blotz has the story.

The Brief

    • The new Organ Donor Care Unit opens Monday, April 14 at M Health Fairview Hospital on 25th Avenue South in Minneapolis.
    • In coordination with LifeSource, the organ donation management agency in the upper Midwest, the unit will receive end-of-life patients from a 100-mile radius to harvest their organs and tissues for donation.
    • Research has shown that donor care units with specialized medical teams are able to collect more usable organs and tissue for those on the transplant waiting lists.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A specialized organ and tissue donor unit is opening at M Health Fairview Hospital with the goal of collecting more usable organs from those who made the decision to donate their organs upon their death.

"This is another step towards trying to maximize the number of organs from deceased donors that can be used in recipients and reduce that waiting list," said Dr. Andrew Adams, the chief of transplantation at M Health Fairview.

How it works

What we know:

Currently, when a person who’s made the commitment to donate their organs has an end-of-life emergency, their tissue and organs are surgically collected at the hospital where they died.

Going forward, when a potential donor has a life-ending emergency at a hospital within a 100-mile radius of Minneapolis, that person will be kept on life support and transported to the Donor Care Unit at M Health Fairview. There, a specialized team of transplant surgeons and nurses will collect the tissue and organs to be sent to patients on the waiting list.

"Sometimes it’s a period of 24–72 hours where we’re optimizing their organ functions so we can utilize as many of their organs as they wanted to give," said Dr. Adams.

The Donor Care Unit was created with the help of LifeSource, the agency tasked with coordinating organ donation in Minnesota, western Wisconsin and North and South Dakota.

"The space in and of itself brings together all of the technological advances that exist in organ donation and transplantation as well as the capabilities of a wonderful institution of M Health Fairview," said Greg Veendendaal, the organ team director of operations for LifeSource. "Partnering with LifeSource allows for that collaboration in this space."

What the research says

What they're saying:

Research in the use of organ donor centers suggests that, in the long run, they save money on the procurement process, and result in more organs and tissue being harvested.

An article in the journal ScienceDirect indicates that after the initial high upfront cost of establishing an organ donor center, the broken-down costs of managing a donor in a donation center are less than in a hospital. The savings are from decreased operating room and anesthesia costs.

Additionally, a study published in the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health showed donors in a dedicated organ donor center "had higher total numbers of organs transplanted per donor." The results showed a rate of 3.5 in a donation center as opposed to 3.3 in a hospital. The study also found that such organ donation centers were "associated with more lungs, livers, and pancreases transplanted."

By the numbers:

As of April 11, 2025, Minnesota currently has a large waiting list for those needing a transplant.

  • 2,412 Minnesotans waiting for an organ transplant
  • 1,878 Kidney
  • 158 Liver
  • 73 Pancreas
  • 179 Kidney/Pancreas
  • 101 Heart
  • 20 Lung
  • 3 Heart/Lung

How to become a donor

What you can do:

Minnesotans can become an organ donor by checking the box while applying for a driver's license. Another way is to make the commitment online with LifeSource at www.life-soure.org.

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