Referral to Recovery: Increasing High Quality Ocular Outcomes

Recorded On: 03/06/2019

In the always evolving eye banking profession, ensuring that cornea tissue is recovered in a timely, efficient and safe manner is always a priority.

In the one-hour webinar, Referral to Recovery - Increasing High Quality Ocular Outcomes, three presenters will identify various practices that eye bank staff members can utilize when working with hospital partners, funeral home directors, and others to yield excellent ocular outcomes and increase potential benefits for recipients.

Referrals, Triage and Donor NOK Phone Calls: A program to improve ocular donation outcomes.
Andrea Cranford, Lions VisionGift

Navigating call center logistics effectively and efficiently can broker positive tissue quality outcomes with donor tissue by abbreviating death to preservation timelines. This smoother, more efficacious execution of the donor coordinator role also has the secondary benefit of facilitating a better relationship with partner agencies by streamlining and expediting the donation process, thus reducing the time and logistics burden placed upon hospitals and funeral homes throughout the recovery process. The presenter discusses several tools and strategies that can be used by donor coordinators to reduce tissue recovery timelines.

Implementing an issue tracking system
Michael O’Keefe, Eversight

This session will provide an overview of how Eversight implemented a system where all staff can report issues that obstruct work flows or slow down the donation process. Using Jira, a software program, all submitted issues are collated so that trends can be identified. Recurrent items are reviewed and countermeasures are developed to prevent continued issues. Implementation of the software, along with making it widely available for all staff has raised awareness to issues that were previously unknown, leading to improvements in OPO relations, Hospital recoveries, and Funeral Home and Medical Examiner partnerships.

Enhancing Funeral Home Relationships to Increase Donations and Reduce Recovery Times.
Julie Todd, CorneaGen

The role of the Eye Bank can greatly impact outcomes and by strengthening Funeral Home relationships we can have successful donation outcomes. This presentation will share a unique program that fosters positive relationships with funeral homes. The Funeral Home relationship can provide a partnership that will improve death to preservation times and lead to increased referrals. To have a positive impact on reducing death to preservation times a program was implemented that allows 24-hr access to the facilities. The presenter will share why the program was created at one organization, how it was implemented and the outcomes.

Gain insight on ways to improve the referral process as well as ocular outcomes and purchase this session today!

Recording Length: 1 Hour

CEU: 1

Andrea Cranford

Lions VisionGift

Andrea Cranford began her career at Lions VisonGift in May of 2011 as a Donation Specialist, screening for eye and tissue donation, coordinating recovery logistics and guiding families through the donation process. In June of 2011 she was promoted to Logistics Center Trainer overseeing all training for new Donation Specialist staff. In August 2013 she was promoted to Manager of the Logistics Center and in January of 2019 her role expanded to managing the Donor Referral Line, DRL. The DRL is the new designated referral center for Oregon and Southern Washington. Through a strategic partnership with Pacific Northwest Transplant Bank, Community Tissue Services, and Lions VisonGift the three organizations work to gain operational efficiencies through shared resources and aligned initiatives to best maximize the gift of donation.

Michael O'Keefe, CEBT

Eversight

Michael O'Keefe, CEBT, joined Eversight in 1994 as a laboratory technician soon after he graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in Biology. During his time at Eversight he worked in numerous leadership roles, became a private pilot, learned how to raise bees, thought about raising chickens, formed an improv duo and earned an MBA from the Ross School of Business. Michael now serves in the role of Chief Operating Officer and is helping Eversight to maximize its mission by improving operational effectiveness, employee engagement and customer satisfaction using principles derived from the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan.

Julie Todd, CEBT

CorneaGen - Orlando

Julie Todd, CEBT, has been with CorneaGen - Orlando (formerly KeraLink International, Southeast) since October 2013 and is currently Donor Family Services Manager. Julie was introduced to the donor services field and began working as a per-diem ocular recovery technician for KeraLink International. Over the years Julie has become a full time technician developing her eye-banking education and worked to attain her CEBT in 2016. She currently manages the Family Service Coordinator and Recovery departments. Julie is an outdoor enthusiast and will always #optoutside when the opportunity presents.

Janice Sedgwick, CEBT

Georgia Eye Bank

Janice Sedgwick, CEBT, is the Manager of Public and Professional Relations at Georgia Eye Bank. Janice has also been a member of the Donor Development committee since 2012.