Almost nightly, Danielle McKain watches her son
Jameson play baseball in their backyard. She and
her husband recently bought him a new automatic
pitching machine, and she says he’ll hit wiffle balls
for nearly an hour straight until she tells him it’s
time to come inside.
It’s a scene Danielle says she never thought she’d
see when Jameson received a heart transplant in
the summer of 2011.
Four years later, 2015 brought Jameson’s second
season of baseball—and he shows no signs of
slowing down.
“I never imagined he would be playing baseball and
going to school in a public setting,” Danielle says.
“The older he gets and the more education he gets,
it’s clear that so much is going to happen for him.”
CORE is one of four OPOs from
across the country that joined
together to create a first-of-its-
kind collaborative.
LINC – the Leadership and
Innovation National Collaborative
– enables the OPOs to share best
practices and achieve cost savings
as they fulfill their shared mission
of coordinating the surgical
recovery of organs, tissue and
corneas for transplantation.
In the first full year of LINC’s
existence, the OPOs spent a lot
of time looking for areas where
they could improve organizational
efficiencies and work together
to save costs. They conducted
a close review of hypothermia
protocols. They formulated donor
management goals to ensure
consistency of what they’re
measuring across the board. They
looked at authorization rates, as
well as observed-versus-expected
transplantation rates.
Group Purchasing
Organization (GPO)
LINC also formed a Joint
Purchasing Task Force to serve
as a GPO for the organizations.
The group was tasked with supply
chain management, valuation
and negotiation of supplies, and
getting costs down. They started
by creating a partner portal and
uploading all of their supplies.
By identifying common supplies
already in use by all of the OPOs,
LINC approached distributors and
negotiated reduced pricing based
on volume.
The OPOs now have the
purchasing power of a large
hospital, putting the group into
a different pricing tier.
He’s doing so well,
that he’s prepared
to start kindergarten
in 2016.
”
“
Danielle,
Jameson’s mom
3
P A R T N E R S H I P S
