What This Statute Says
The article requires every organ, eye, and tissue procurement organization operating in Arizona to be licensed.
A. A person may not act as a procurement organization in this state unless the person is licensed by the department of health services as a procurement organization.
B. The director shall grant a procurement organization license to a person if the organization either is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency that is approved by the department of health services and maintains full accreditation with the accrediting agency or meets the requirements prescribed in section 36-851.03 and the rules adopted by the department.
C. A license under this section is valid for two years and must be renewed every two years.
Subsection D requires payment of fees. Subsection E lets the director sanction, fine, suspend, or revoke a license for violations of the article or department rules.
When This Statute Comes Into Play
The provision sets the regulatory floor for organizations recovering organs, eyes, or tissues from Arizona donors. National accreditation through bodies like the United Network for Organ Sharing or the American Association of Tissue Banks satisfies the licensing requirement in practice.
What This Means for Arizona Families
Donors and families rarely interact directly with this section, but it shapes the quality of every donation. The procurement organization that recovers a donor's gift must be licensed by the state, must either be nationally accredited or meet state operational standards, and is subject to sanctions if it violates the article.
The licensing framework is one reason a donor's gift moves through a tightly regulated pipeline: from registration, to recovery, to allocation, to transplantation. Our FAQ on how to make organ-donation wishes legally binding covers the donor side of the equation. The receiving infrastructure is governed by sections 36-851.01 through 36-851.03 and the related provisions of this article, with your wishes documented in your healthcare directive traveling through that infrastructure to where they can do the most good.