In a nondescript building next to Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach, a middleman connects life-changing organ and tissue donations with recipients across the country.
In glass-enclosed rooms, workers in protective gear handle donated tissue at tables. Another mops the floor while someone records information at a computer.
In a larger room, more than 20 storage tanks stand side by side, filled with liquid nitrogen. The tanks keep tissue at extremely low temperatures to preserve it for future use . Each can hold hundreds or thousands of grafts, and can be stored for years until they are needed.
Nearby, in a shipping room, two workers pack tissue into insulated containers. One adds dry ice while the other logs the shipment. The boxes are then sent to hospitals and transplant centers across the U.S.
LifeNet Health serves as the sole federally- designated organ procurement organization in Virginia.
The work is part of a system that most people do not see: how donated organs and tissues make their way from donor to waiting recipients.
“Our mission is saving lives and restoring health, but we have to be a complex logistics company to make all that happen,” said Doug Wilson, the executive vice president at LifeNet Health.
As part of a national network, LifeNet Health works with more than 80 hospitals in the country to coordinate organ and tissue donation, from identifying donors to arranging transplants.
When a patient is declared dead, hospital staff transfer care to LifeNet. The organization evaluates which organs and tissues may be used, reviews medical history and works with transplant centers.
Organs move quickly. They are typically matched before they are recovered, and once removed, must be transplanted within hours.
“It's generally not a pleasant time in the family's life together,” Wilson said. “It's our responsibility to care for them, be extremely transparent about what their opportunities are, how they can help people, and then to medically and clinically facilitate the logistics of the donation, and then ultimately the transplantation.”
Wilson said the organization has handled more than 700 organ transplants last year, and has facilitated millions of tissue transplants over the past 40 years.
These matches are made through a national system managed by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which prioritizes patients based on medical urgency and compatibility. A single donor’s organs may go to multiple hospitals, sometimes across state lines and national borders.
Tissue follows a different process.
Skin, bone and tendons can be recovered and transported to processing facilities. There, they are screened, measured and prepared for future procedures. Some tissue is stored while additional medical records or testing are completed.
Joan Pascua-Colasito, a former ICU nurse at Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, decided to donate her husband’s organs after he suffered a severe stroke. She said her medical background helped her understand his prognosis.
“It was not easy, but I knew my husband's quality of life was not going to be the best if he even survived this,” she said. “He wouldn't recognize me, that he would be more in a vegetative state.”
Her husband’s organs, including his liver and kidneys, went to multiple patients awaiting transplants.
Joey Moughan, a Marine Corps veteran, received a heart transplant after spending months on a waiting list. At an event in Chesapeake earlier this month, he said the experience changed how he views his life.
“Because of the bravery and selflessness and kindness of a complete stranger, you can get a second shot at life,” he said.
Wilson said misconceptions about organ donation remain and can be a barrier for people considering whether to register as donors.
Some people worry that registering as a donor could affect medical care, or that decisions are made before all treatment options are exhausted.
Wilson said that is not the case. He said medical teams focus on saving lives, and organ donation is “only discussed after death is declared.”
Beyond how the system works, the cost behind organ donation is also less visible.
Studies estimate that preparing a donor organ for transplant — including evaluating the donor, surgically recovering the organ and transporting it — can cost tens of thousands of dollars. One analysis found the average cost of recovering a liver to be about $31,000.
Organ procurement organizations like LifeNet bill transplant centers for those services. Those charges are built into the overall cost of a transplant, which can reach more than a million dollars, depending on the organ.
Tissue transplants are less expensive, because it can be processed and stored, and it moves through a more standardized system. Organizations charge processing fees to cover the cost of cleaning, testing and preparing tissue for medical use.
