The subject of organ donation is rarely a casual conversation. It’s a frightening subject because it forces you not only to confront your own mortality, but the mortality of your loved ones.
And yet, educating the public about organ transplants is a challenge Arlene Harris and the Personal Communications Industry Association Foundation have taken beyond the LifePage program to the Wireless Partnership for Donor Awareness. Harris, chairman and cofounder of SOS Wireless Communications, came by to visit the other day and talk about WPDA.
The LifePage program-started by Harris’ brother, Russ, back before PCIA was PCIA-loans wireless devices to families awaiting organ transplants so the hospitals can notify them immediately once an organ becomes available. To date, more than 60,000 pagers have been donated to potential organ recipients.
In recent years, the Foundation decided to take a more holistic approach to organ donation than merely providing the wireless technology. Now the group focuses on awareness and education.
Wireless technology is crucial in organ donations-from the family carrying the pager that may signal when a suitable organ is ready for their loved one, to the medical teams involved in harvesting and transporting the organs, to counselors and chaplains needed in these life-and-death situations.
A lung-transplant patient has about a four-hour window in which to receive a transplant. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see the integral part wireless technology plays in that scenario.
“Wireless in its broadest roots is founded in medicine,” said Harris, noting doctors and other medical personnel always have been big wireless users.
The wireless industry certainly gets its fair share of bad press, Harris noted. But here, the technology is being used to help make something good out of something tragic.
WPDA’s mission is to promote organ donation among wireless industry professionals and to mobilize them to raise organ donor awareness in their communities.
For Harris, the program is personal, too. Brother Russ died last year awaiting a transplant.
