LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OneLegacy, the organ procurement organization (OPO) that serves the greater seven county Southern California region, announced Monday that longtime Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer Prasad Garimella has been promoted to Chief Executive Officer of the organization. Garimella joined OneLegacy 15 years ago, bringing with him a sophisticated understanding of organ donation, the systems and skill sets it requires, and a clinical background as a physician.
Longtime CEO Tom Mone will assume the role of Chief External Affairs Officer and Vice President of Foundation Operations, overseeing the OneLegacy Foundation and community investments as well as government, community and media outreach for OneLegacy. The transition and continued partnership at the helm of one of the nation’s leading OPOs is designed to build on the work Mone and Garimella have led to innovate, change, and improve the practice of donation. Across their tenures, OneLegacy has doubled organ donation, tripled tissue donation and ushered in countless innovations that have rippled across the industry.
“Prasad was a natural choice to succeed Tom as the next CEO of OneLegacy as their work together led to continuous innovation while prioritizing empathy and dedication to waiting transplant recipients. This seamless transition will strengthen relationships with our hospital partners and communities while increasing our commitment to innovation, and service to families and transplant partners, ultimately allowing us to connect more recipients with life-saving organs,” said William I. Chertok, Chair of the OneLegacy Board of Directors.
Prior to joining OneLegacy, Garimella was the director of donor services for Tissue Banks International, a nonprofit network of eye and tissue banks, overseeing their programs in the Northern California Transplant Bank, Orange County Eye and Tissue Bank, and New Mexico Lions Eye Bank. He also served as executive director for Doheny Eye and Tissue Transplant Bank. He is a physician, having attended Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute and finishing his internship at the University Hospital — Siddhartha Medical College in India. Dedicated to saving more lives each year through organ donation, Garimella also serves on the Board of Directors for Donate Life California.
“I am honored to continue my service with this incredible organization,” Garimella said. “OneLegacy has firmly established itself as one of the nation’s leading OPOs, acting as a national leader in research and innovation and working hand-in-hand with local communities to continuously improve organ donation for one of the most diverse regions of the country. As we look to the future, there is still work to be done in connecting with communities of color, increasing the number of registered donors, and working with hospitals to improve the number of organs that are viable for transplantation — and we are dedicated to continuing to do just that.”
OneLegacy takes on the emotionally delicate, logistically complex and medically precise process of organ donation to facilitate organ, eye, and tissue donation and transplantation across seven-counties with more than 20 million people. The organization has 350 team members, who mirror the diversity of Southern California. They enable OneLegacy to respond to 100 percent of donor referrals — 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
For more than 50 years, OneLegacy has pioneered best practices that have gone on to be adopted by other OPOs in the field, including co-development of the Donate Life California registry, which has registered 17.8 million Californians to be donors, developing web-based organ offers, and implementing the first real-time testing for the Hepatitis C and HIV viruses. OneLegacy is at the forefront of data-driven donation operations with its digitalDonor EDR system that includes real-time geo-tracking data referral response to every one of the 90,000 potential tissue and organ donor referrals it receives each year.
These innovations have facilitated record-setting organ donation over each of the past seven years and a 50% increase in transplants over the past decade.
“It has been a privilege to lead this organization for the last 22 years, and I look forward to OneLegacy’s continued success under Prasad’s stewardship,” Mone said. “Our OneLegacy team has always been uniquely focused on serving the most diverse community in the nation, and with my new role, we’ll be able to expand on that work, building relationships and educating Californians to Donate Life.”
About OneLegacy
OneLegacy is the nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation in seven counties in Southern California: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Kern. It serves more than 200 hospitals, 10 transplant centers, a diverse population of 20 million donors and families across the region and waiting recipients across the country. For more information, visit OneLegacy.org.
