2019 Award Recipient

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce 

Highlights

• CORE has maintained performance among the top 10% of 

the nation’s OPOs from 2014 through 2019.

• For all four of CORE’s key customer groups—donor families, 

transplant centers, corneal transplant surgeons, and tissue 

processors—results show satisfaction levels above 90%. 

The satisfaction rate for donor families has been between 

95 and 100%.

• In a best-practice OPO partnership called LINC, CORE 

has developed algorithms to help normalize results 

data so that OPOs can better measure and improve their 

performance through comparison and benchmarking. 

CORE’s information technology team has also worked 

closely with AOPO to build a tool to advance OPOs’ 

best practices. 

• As the result of managing the costs, efficiency, and 

effectiveness of its operations, which led to two on-site 

operating rooms and research laboratories, CORE achieved 

cost-savings of over $300,000 in 2014, over $600,000 in 

2018, and over $2.6 million to date.

 

Center for Organ Recovery & Education

Located in Pittsburgh, PA, the Center for Organ Recovery & Education 

(CORE) is a nonprofit organ procurement organization (OPO) with 

a federally designated service area encompassing a population of 

5.5 million in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and one county 

in New York. One of 58 independent, nonprofit OPOs designated 

by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CORE’s mission 

is to save and heal lives through donation.

Mission-Driven Leadership with 

Industry-wide Impact

• Senior leaders have ensured that CORE’s mission drives the 

culture, as the staff works to encourage and maximize every 

possible life-saving donation across three states. Through CORE’s 

four-step leadership system, the mission, vision, and values are 

set; evaluated for improvement; and communicated throughout 

the organization.

• CORE has taken a lead role as a high-performing OPO in a 

best-practice partnership called LINC, which includes two other 

Baldrige Award-winning organizations, to develop algorithms to 

help normalize results data so that OPOs can better measure and 

improve their performance through comparison and benchmarking. 

CORE’s information technology (IT) team has also worked 

closely with the industry-wide Association of Organ Procurement 

Organizations (AOPO) to build a tool to examine infrastructure, 

data, and integration in order to advance OPOs’ best practices. 

Measuring and Managing Data for 

High Performance

• CORE has maintained performance among the top 10% of the 

nation’s OPOs from 2014 through 2019 for the key industry 

measure of organ conversion rate, which is the percentage of 

authorized donations obtained through first-person or next-of-kin 

authorization. CORE’s rolling, three-year rates have been 7 to 10 

percentage points higher than all but one peer in its comparison 

group of top-performing OPOs for five years. 

• CORE continuously monitors its performance on key measures 

through corporate and department-level dashboards, with 

measures cascading from dashboards and scorecards to action 

plans. Measures are tracked daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and 

annually using resources such as the “data mall,” which was built 

in-house by CORE’s IT staff. To improve efficiency and effectiveness, 

CORE uses methods such as analysis of strengths, weaknesses, 

opportunities, and threats; a leadership-initiated “catch-ball” 

process that spreads best practices through workforce 

communication and consensus as part of the annual strategic 

planning process; and a program fostering employee-submitted 

“Great Ideas.”
2019 Award Recipient

Center for Organ Recovery & Education 

• To project its future performance, CORE uses predictive analytics 

of historical data and external benchmarks and trend data. 

For example, the clinical department uses linear regression models 

to forecast the number of organs recovered, a key strategic measure 

for CORE.

Operational Effectiveness and 

Emergency Readiness

• CORE is an industry trailblazer for having its laboratory do

infectious disease testing and biopsies in-house, and the 

organization has cut recovery-to-transplant time on life-saving 

organs, as pathologists can review CORE’s biopsy samples 

remotely via computer. For the past five years, CORE has 

continuously improved its lab biopsy turnaround time (measured 

in minutes taken to complete biopsy processing). CORE’s lab 

has decreased its cycle time to complete testing on specimens for 

transplantation from nearly 500 minutes in 2015 to well under 400 

minutes in 2018.

• CORE’s continuously improved methods of managing the costs, 

efficiency, and effectiveness of its operations led to construction 

of two on-site operating rooms and research laboratories. As a 

result of moving donors to its site, CORE achieved cost-savings 

of over $300,000 in 2014, over $600,000 in 2018, and over 

$2.6 million to date.

• CORE’s business continuity plan includes a partnership with an 

OPO in another state that minimizes risks for both organizations 

by allowing them to support each other’s operations during an 

emergency in order to provide continuous service to their respective 

areas. The comprehensive plan addresses the IT and other needs 

of CORE’s suppliers, partners, and workforce members. CORE’s 

plan was recognized by the industry wide AOPO as a best practice 

in 2018 in its reaccreditation survey.

Financial Results

• For at least four years, CORE’s results have matched or outperformed 

those of comparators for measures of days-cash-on-hand, operating 

revenue, research revenue, current ratio, and organ revenue. 

For example, the number of days of operating expenses that CORE 

could pay with its currently available funds (days-cash-on-hand) 

is around 600, compared to the comparisons of less than 250. 

And CORE’s research revenue last year of about $325,000 is more 

than five times that of partners (at about $60,000). 

• CORE’s integrated processes for donor evaluation and organ/tissue 

recovery have significantly reduced costs for processing six out 

of eight organ types (kidney, liver, heart, single lung, double lungs, 

and heart/lung) relative to other high-performing peers, partner 

hospitals, and industry comparisons. For example, CORE’s average 

cost for the heart/lung combination is currently more than 50% 

lower than that of both comparator groups (below $40,000 per 

heart/lung compared to a cost of more than $60,000 for the other 

two groups).

Customer-Focused Results

• For all four of CORE’s key customer groups—donor families, 

transplant centers, corneal transplant surgeons, and tissue 

processors—results show satisfaction levels above 90% in recent 

years. The satisfaction rate for donor families has been between 

95 and 100%; the rate for transplant centers is above 90%; and 

the nearly 100% satisfaction rate for tissue processors last year 

outperformed the comparison of around 90%. In addition, ratings 

show that overall satisfaction among the corneal transplant surgeons 

served by CORE is averaging 5 on a scale of 1 to 5, outperforming 

the comparison average of below 4.8.

• CORE’s performance on a measure of its social reputation improved 

by 20 points (from 60 to 80 on a scale to 100) from 2016 to 2018.

Workforce Engagement and 

Development Results

• CORE’s overall employee retention rate of nearly 90% last year 

outperformed the national industry average of less than 85%—and 

is projected to reach about 95% for 2019. Results for several 

dimensions of CORE’s employee satisfaction survey—including 

connection to the mission as well as competitive benefits and 

salary, organizational sustainability and growth, and co-worker 

relationships—are in the top 25% of comparison health care 

organizations.

• Reflecting CORE’s commitment to workforce development, all 

employees must participate in at least ten hours of professional 

development per year. Results since 2016 show that this goal 

has been met and exceeded for the past four years, with CORE 

employees on average completing 12 to 13 hours of professional 

development annually, with the trend projected to increase to 

15 hours for 2019. In five years, CORE has doubled its investment 

in professional development costs for its workforce, from less than 

$60,000 in 2014 to more than $120,000 in both 2018 and 2019.

For more information:

Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE)

204 Sigma Drive, RIDC Park

Pittsburgh, PA 15238

www.core.org

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program

The Baldrige Program educates organizations of all sizes and 

from all sectors in organizational performance management and 

improvement. We also administer the Malcolm Baldrige National

Quality Award. Our key services are to identify and recognize 

role-model organizations, share best management practices, 

and help organizations achieve best-in-class performance levels.

We are the only public-private partnership and Presidential award 

program dedicated to improving U.S. organizations. 

For more information on the Baldrige Program: 

www.nist.gov/baldrige | 301-975-2036 | baldrige@nist.gov

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program • National Institute of Standards and Technology • Department of Commerce