2023 Health Care Champions Health Care Professional: Lori Pace

Throughout her career, Lori Pace has focused on advocating for and supporting people.

Currently, she is a hospital services specialist at Mid-America Transplant Services, helping in the facilitation process of organ and tissue donation.

“I work alongside doctors and nurses in Springfield area hospitals to help people understand the organ and tissue donation process and support saving lives through the gifts of organs and tissues,” Pace says.

She says the need is large: In Missouri, over 1,700 people are waiting for transplants, and nationwide 17 people die a day, just waiting for a donation.

“Ultimately, the work I do in promoting organ and tissue donation is creating lifesaving opportunities for men, women and children on the transplant waitlist,” Pace says.

She helps doctors, nurses, patients and their families understand the donation process and walks them through the difficult times.

It’s more than a job to Pace, as she went through the organ donation process herself when her 1-year-old son, Will, died. She and her husband chose to donate his organs, which she says saved three lives; a 2-year-old boy who needed a heart, an 18-month-old girl who needed a liver and a 45-year-old woman who needed kidneys.

“This unique experience allows me to help medical staff understand how they can best support grieving families with the decision to donate and ensure that every family who is eligible has the opportunity to consider donation,” she says. “I know firsthand the struggles that come with losing someone you love, as well as the hope and healing that organ and tissue donation can provide for the donor family.”

Other family members have also been affected by the donation process, she says. 

“My husband’s uncle is a living donor who donated a kidney to one of his employees,” she says. “Additionally, his aunt was a two-time kidney recipient, and my niece – having sustained two sports-related injuries – is a two-time bone and tendon recipient.”

Pace says although her job is behind the scenes, since joining the Mid-America Transplant team in 2019, the company has supported over 1,600 donor families throughout the process.

Prior to joining Mid-America Transplant, Pace served her community working as executive director at the Rogersville Area Chamber of Commerce and as a department director at The Arc of the Ozarks.

She also gets involved in the community, serving as a volunteer for the Kids Zone at the Light the Way Music Festival, and recently as board secretary and grant committee chair for the Community Foundation of Rogersville. She also serves through a governor-appointed role on the Missouri State Rehabilitation Council, which is the group that helps review the state’s vocational rehabilitation agency’s services for the disabled and program eligibility guidelines.

At Mid-America Transplant, she says she is proud that she can help encourage families to agree to donate tissues and organs.

“I am grateful my work not only saves the lives of those waiting for a transplant, but it provides Springfield families with a unique sense of hope and healing in the midst of their grief,” she says.