Diane Brockmeier
Diane Brockmeier, president and CEO of Mid-America Transplant, has been elected to serve as the president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO). She will serve a three-year term as a president-elect, president and immediate past president. Her term begins July 1.
As president, Brockmeier will chair AOPO’s board of directors and preside over the executive committee. She will lead AOPO in providing education and collaboration for 58 U.S. organizations responsible for facilitating organ and tissue donations for transplant. Brockmeier plans to champion a heightened focus on collaboration across organ procurement organizations (OPOs), and the pursuit of innovations and performance improvement processes that can improve the speed and quality of donation.
“When I began working in this industry more than 30 years ago, I was captivated by our mission, and remain in awe of the lifesaving work we do in our industry,” said Brockmeier. “I am humbled to be a voice to advocate for donors, their families and those who wait on the transplant list for the gift of a second chance at life.”
Throughout her career, Brockmeier has served in many roles for AOPO, including secretary and treasurer, chair of the Standards and Accreditation Committee, co-chair of the Chief Operation Officers Council, and co-chair of the Strategic Planning Task Force. She also has held positions on several committees at the United Network for Organ Sharing Participation (UNOS). In addition, she has been involved on the boards of several health organizations, including LifeLogics, which provides technology to manage donor registries, tissue processor Allosource, the Foundation for Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, and the University of Missouri School of Nursing.
Since joining Mid-America Transplant as a nurse in 1986, Brockmeier has been nationally recognized for her collaborative efforts to establish key quality benchmarks and enhance organ and tissue donation recovery, quality and processing. She was the driving force behind the design and construction of a first in the nation on-site surgical suite for organ recovery, which resulted in enhanced quality control and convenience for donor hospitals and surgeons. These efforts helped earn Mid-America Transplant the Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence in 2015. The two projects are now shared as best practice examples nationwide.
Locally, Brockmeier has been recognized for her leadership in St. Louis’ healthcare industry as a 2016 Most Influential Business Woman by the St. Louis Business Journal, and a 2016 Healthcare Accomplishment Recognition Award recipient by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.
About Mid-America Transplant
Mid-America Transplant enables adults and children to receive lifesaving gifts through organ and tissue donations. For more than 40 years, it has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ donors, recipients and families, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant was the first such organization in the U.S. to use an in-house operating room for organ recovery and pioneered innovative models of increasing donor registry enrollment in an effort to provide organs and tissues to those in need. It is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S., and is the first organ procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence. For more information, visit www.midamericatransplant.org.
About the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO)
AOPO is a non-profit, national organization representing all federally-designated organ procurement organizations (OPOs). The Association represents and serves OPOs through advocacy, support and the development of activities that will maximize the availability of organs and tissues and enhance the quality, effectiveness and integrity of the donation process. For more information, visit www.aopo.org.