St. Clare Hospital, Baraboo, has received an Excellence in Donation award recognizing its efforts to provide options to donor families in 2006.

The hospital’s tissue donation partner, Madison, Wis.-based RTI Donor Services, presented the honor.

According to RTI Donor Services Development Specialist Laurie Hagene, St. Clare Hospital achieved a 63-percent tissue donation rate in 2006. This means that tissue was recovered on 63 percent of the hospital’s eligible donors. This compares to a national donation rate of 37.5 percent.

Gifts of tissue—which include bone, skin, heart valves, connective tissue, and veins—are used in more than 1 million surgeries routinely performed each year in the United States.

Many more people are eligible tissue donors than they are organ donors, Hagene says. Organ donation usually takes place when brain death has occurred, and transplants must be performed within a short time afterward. Tissue can be recovered within 12 to 24 hours of death and preserved for later use.

“This outstanding accomplishment by St. Clare has made a tremendous difference in the lives of others,” Hagene notes. “Donated tissue gifts save lives, as well as increase strength, mobility and independence for many, many patients.”

RTI Donor Services is a not-for-profit tissue recovery network dedicated to serving donor families and the donation community in perpetuating the circle of life. In addition to offering families the option of tissue donation, RTI Donor Services supports their wishes as a responsible steward of human donated tissue gifts, and provides family services, as well as community information and awareness. RTI Donor Services may be accessed through the Internet at www.rtidonorservices.org.