Hospital Wins Platinum Award

Antelope Valley Medical Center (AVMC) received the Health and Human Services Platinum Recognition Award for raising awareness about organ donation. The award was presented by Tom Mone, the chief executive officer of OneLegacy, the country’s largest organ recovery agency.

The award recognizes AVMC’s efforts in encouraging staff and community members to enroll in the state registry as organ, eye and tissue donors. The hospital has previously been recognized as the top-performing hospital in all of OneLegacy’s service areas, which include 240 hospitals in the seven-county greater Los Angeles area. The hospital is one of only nine in OneLegacy’s service area to receive the award–the highest honor for organ donation awareness—and the 25th in California.

“We have had no better partner and collaborator in organized tissue donation than Antelope Valley Medical Center over the many years,” said Mone. “Antelope Valley has led the way in our community in these types of activities, and it shows in the increase in donations here and across the region and we thank you tremendously for it.”

This year the hospital continued the traditions of a flag-raising ceremony for Donate Life Month in April and a rose dedication where a special message penned by AVMC staff is placed on OneLegacy’s Rose Parade float. The hospital also sent a team of volunteers to the Donate Life walk in April in Fullerton.

“OneLegacy is a fabulous organization,” said AVMC Interim Chief Executive Officer Paul Brydon. “There’s nothing like decorating the Rose Parade float with families that have received an organ or given one. The families want to tell their story, share their thanks and appreciation for what we do, and what individual sacrifices families make.”

OneLegacy Ambassador David Hagnes, a Lancaster resident, had a liver transplant in 2013 and thanked the hospital for saving his life.

“It was really grueling, but I’m blessed that I’m alive,” said Hagnes. “I want to thank AV Hospital because you were the first place I went to when I got sick. I have new life because of good doctors and nurses.”

Nearly 22,000 California residents are waiting to receive lifesaving hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys and other organs. A single organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people and improve the lives of as many as 75 more by donating their corneas and tissue.

From left: OneLegacy CEO Tom Mone, Antelope Valley Medical Center Interim CEO Paul Brydon and OneLegacy Ambassador David Hagnes. Mone presented the Platinum Award, the highest honor a hospital can receive for organ donation outreach efforts, to Brydon.