You can get a cornea almost any time, from any eye bank. But, for Midwest Eye-Banks, it's not just about delivering eye tissue to surgeons in a timely fashion. At Midwest Eye-Banks, we are committed to clinical quality, professional excellence, technological innovation and sight restoration research. 

A Commitment to Clinical Quality

When you receive eye tissue from our eye bank in Illinois, New Jersey and Michigan, you receive more than what meets the eye. Inside that package is the pride of our highly-skilled eye-banking professionals who sustain only the highest quality standards as they recover, evaluate and deliver tissue to you. Midwest satisfies 99.9 percent of the requests it receives for eye-tissue- often at a moment's notice. Whether your need is for an emergency or a routine operation- locally, nationally, or internationally- we're ready for your call. Midwest Eye-Banks is an integrated network of eye banks that follow consistent clinical protocols and quality improvement initiatives. As one of the nation's top 10 providers of corneas for transplants, Midwest continues to set standards for the highest quality eye banks throughout the world.The clinical operation of Midwest Eye-Banks is maintained in accordance with Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) medical standards. Our professional standards ensure both surgeon and patient confidence in tissue quality. Tissue is provided for a variety of surgical eye procedures. Corneas in Optisol^TM - GS are available for:

• Penetrating, full-thickness keratoplasty (PKP)
• Keratolimbal allograft (KLAL)
• Deep lamellar endothelial keratoplasty (DLEK)
• Deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK)
• Scleral shells, in 95 percent ETOH, are also available in a variety of sizes.

Most eye banks meet the minimum Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) accreditation requirement of having at least one certified eye bank technician on staff. Each Midwest Eye-Banks division and subsidiary exceeds this requirement. Involvement in professional affairs distinguishes our staff among eye banks. Most of our clinical and administrative executives, including our medical directors, are involved in EBAA committees. One of our medical directors has also been honored with the Association's Paton Award for medical excellence.

A Commitment to Technological Innovation

The information technology used by Midwest- in fact, developed by Midwest- reflects our desire to excel in our field. In order to meet the demands of regulatory requirements and other complexities of maintaining compliance with medical standards, Midwest has developed its own software to meet the highly specialized needs of an eye bank. The information system supports these functions:

• Case data entry, including donor screening, plasma dilution and EBAA-compliant tissue evaluation.
• Quality improvement initiatives
• Surgery scheduling
• Tissue distribution
• Post-operative follow-up and outcome reporting
• Case record review
• Adverse reaction tracking
• Next-of-kin letters, contact person letters and mailing lists
• Invoicing, receivables tracking, monetary contributions
• Reporting, activity tracking, data quality review, management information, constituent and public information

Midwest Eye-Banks' information system ensures more efficient use of staff time, more accurate record-keeping and improved service to surgeons and hospitals. 

A Commitment to Sight Restoration Research

Although our core business is the provision of high quality corneal tissue for surgery, Midwest is committed to developing new knowledge through eye and vision research. Each year, Midwest provides more than $100,000 in seed money grants to researchers in several areas of ophthalmology, from the application of "ultrafast" lasers in the surgical treatment of glaucoma to the study of corneal physiology. Grants also support student stipends. As a leader in the recovery of eye tissue, Midwest also supports research by providing a significant number of corneas and whole eyes unsuitable for transplantation for a variety of research efforts related to understand ocular physiology, genetics, various eye diseases and the development of new surgical and medical therapies.