FROM TRANSPLANTATION TO DONATION: NEW CORE CEO DEBORAH MAURER LOOKS TO EXPAND WHAT'S POSSIBLE

Marking exactly one month into her tenure, longtime transplant director looks to build on CORE's nearly 50 years of life-saving impact through clinical innovation, stronger healthcare partnerships and investment in the future.

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Deborah Maurer, RN, MBA, has joined the Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) as president and chief executive officer, bringing more than 30 years of experience helping patients receive life-saving transplants to the organization that makes those second chances possible.

Maurer joined CORE in July and officially assumed leadership one month ago today, following a career in health care and transplantation. She most recently served as transplant administrator for the UPMC Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, where she helped oversee one of the nation's premier transplant programs. 

After time spent listening to CORE employees, meeting with healthcare partners and learning the organization from the inside, Maurer says moving from transplantation to donation has given her a new perspective on just how much is possible when hospitals, organ procurement organizations and transplant programs work together.

"I spent a lot of years on the transplant side, so I know what that call means when there is an organ available for a patient who has been waiting," Maurer said. "Now I have an even greater appreciation for everything that has to happen before that moment. It starts with a donor and a family, and it takes hospital teams, CORE staff, transplant programs and an incredible amount of clinical expertise and coordination to turn that gift into someone's second chance. I see so much opportunity in bringing all of those pieces even closer together."

Building CORE's Next Chapter

Maurer takes the helm as CORE approaches five decades of Saving and Healing lives through organ, tissue and cornea donation.

CORE serves more than 5 million people across western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Chemung County, New York, working alongside nearly 150 hospitals as well as transplant centers, funeral directors, coroners and medical examiners. CORE also supports donor families during the donation process and beyond.

The organization enters its next chapter following seven consecutive record-breaking years of organ, tissue and cornea donation. In 2025, 484 organ donors from CORE's service area resulted in 1,191 organs transplanted, a 23% increase in organs transplanted over the previous year. CORE also holds the 2019 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest presidential recognition for organizational performance excellence.

Maurer succeeds Susan Stuart, whose more than two decades as President and CEO helped establish CORE as a nationally recognized leader in donation and shaped best practices across the field.

"I have tremendous respect for what Susan, this team and so many people over nearly 50 years have built here," Maurer said. "You don't come into an organization with this kind of history thinking you have all the answers. You listen. You learn what people are proud of. You ask where we can be better. And then you start thinking together about what is possible next."

For Maurer, that next chapter begins by building on what is already working.

Turning More Donor Opportunities Into Transplants

Clinical innovation is rapidly changing what is possible in organ donation and transplantation, allowing clinical teams to preserve organs longer, assess them differently and create transplant opportunities that may not have existed just a few years ago.

CORE has already made significant investments in that future.

The organization has expanded its use of advanced organ preservation and perfusion, which keeps donated organs warm, oxygenated and functioning outside the body. The approach gives transplant teams additional time and information to assess an organ before transplantation.

"Clinical innovation is creating opportunities we could only imagine years ago," Maurer said. "More lives are being saved and healed every day, and more families are finding meaning and comfort in knowing their loved one's decision to donate created something lasting. For me, innovation always has to come back to that. Can we honor a donor opportunity we couldn't before? Can we give a transplant team better information? Can we help one more person go home to the people they love? That's what makes this exciting."

Maurer sees CORE's next era as more than adopting new medical technology. It also means investing in the people, processes, data and infrastructure needed to make increasingly complex donation and transplantation possible safely and consistently.

The Susan Stuart Center for Excellence, now under construction next to CORE's existing headquarters in O'Hara Township outside Pittsburgh, represents one of the organization's most visible investments in that future. Expected to open in summer 2027, the new facility will expand CORE's capacity as the clinical and operational needs of donation and transplantation continue to evolve.

"We have to think ahead," Maurer said. "What will our hospital partners need from us five years from now? What will our transplant partners need? What tools will our own teams need to do their jobs even better? If medicine is giving us more opportunities to save lives, we have to make sure our people, our processes and our infrastructure are ready to support those opportunities."

Connecting the Entire Donation and Transplant Journey

Maurer believes her experience on the transplant side gives her a particularly useful lens for another priority: making the connections among hospitals, donation and transplantation even stronger.

Donation often begins at a hospital bedside, where physicians and nurses are caring for a patient and family while working with CORE when the possibility of donation exists. What follows can involve an extraordinary amount of clinical decision making and coordination before a donated organ ever reaches a recipient.

Maurer has now worked on both ends of that journey.

"Hospitals, transplant programs and CORE are on the same team," Maurer said. "We are caring for the same people at different points in an incredibly complex process. So, I want our partners to tell us what we're doing well. I also want them to tell us where something isn't working, where there is a barrier or where they see an opportunity to do something better together. Those conversations are how we improve."

CORE has long relied on strong relationships with hospitals, transplant centers and donor families, relationships that helped drive the organization's growth and performance over the past two decades. Maurer sees an opportunity to build on them as technology and medicine continue to change the field.

That means making CORE easier to work with, bringing the organization's clinical expertise closer to hospital teams and continuing to look at the donation process from the perspective of the people actually doing the work.

"Sometimes innovation is a new technology," Maurer said. "Sometimes it is fixing a process that makes someone's job harder than it needs to be. Both matter. I want the people closest to the work helping us identify those opportunities."

Innovation With Trust at the Center

As CORE looks forward, Maurer says the organization's commitment to transparency will remain fundamental to how it grows. Those principles have long been part of CORE's approach. Its decade long performance excellence journey culminated in the 2019 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, while satisfaction among organ, tissue and cornea donor families has consistently ranged from 95 to 100%.

Maurer believes meaningful innovation must also be responsible innovation.

"We should be excited about what medicine and technology are making possible," Maurer said. "Those things go together. A family is trusting us with someone they love. A donor is trusting us to honor their decision. Our hospital and transplant partners are trusting us to do this work well. We earn that trust through strong processes, honest communication, transparency and accountability."

For Maurer, that responsibility also means keeping donors and their families at the center as CORE grows.

"Behind every innovation, every process and every number is a person," Maurer said. "There is a donor who made an incredibly generous decision, a family experiencing one of the hardest moments of their lives and someone somewhere hoping for another chance. We can never lose sight of that."

Looking Toward CORE's Next 50 Years

For the longtime transplant leader, CORE's future ultimately comes back to the patients she spent much of her career serving.

"There are still more than 100,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant in this country," Maurer said. "Every one of them is waiting for a phone call that could change everything. If we can keep getting better at what we do, that means more of those calls. More people going home. More birthdays. More ordinary days with the people they love."

"That's what the future of CORE means to me. And I'm really excited to get to work."

To learn more about organ, tissue and cornea donation or to register as a donor, visit core.org.

ABOUT CORE:
The Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) is one of more than 50 federally designated not-for-profit organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the United States, serving more than five million people in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Chemung County, New York. CORE coordinates the recovery and matching of organs, tissues and corneas for transplant within our service region, and works tirelessly to create a culture of donation within the hospitals and communities we serve. CORE's mission is to Save and Heal lives through donation, ultimately ending the deaths of those on the transplant waiting list, while maintaining integrity for the donation process, dignity for the donors, and compassion for their families. CORE is a winner of the 2019 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, a presidential award that recognizes nonprofits for their innovation and excellence. For more information, visit www.core.org or call 1-800-DONORS-7.

Katelynn Metz: 412-963-3550, [email protected]

SOURCE Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE)