Region Feeds Transplant Services
(As reported in The Sioux Falls Business Journal, Volume 4, publication date 11/01/06, by Jamie Ziemer)
Avera McKennan was South Dakota’s first transplant center, starting in 1993 with kidney transplants. It added bone marrow transplants in 1996 and pancreas transplants in 2003. Avera Transplant Institute does kidney, pancreas and bone marrow transplants and is looking into adding a liver transplant program…
Avera conducts outreach operations in Aberdeen, Yankton, Rapid City, Eagle Butte, Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Pierre, Worthington, and Spencer and Spirit Lake, Iowa.
According to www.ustransplant.org, a patient can wait up to approximately 19 months through Avera’s program for a kidney transplant. Regionally, a patient can expect to wait 30 months, and 38 months is the national average
“The rate of the waiting-list growth has expanded dramatically,” said Dr. Michael Morris, director of solid organ transplantation at Avera. “And the age of patients having kidney transplant continues to climb,” Morris said. “A lot of what we would’ve turned down 15 years ago, we’re taking today…”
Dave Flicek, senior vice president of clinic operations at Avera McKennan, says…. “As you grow the program, it’s easier to set up a potential liver program. This would just be a natural extension.”
The program would attract a hepatologist to the state as part of the program’s requirement. There currently isn’t one in South Dakota. Flicek said if a liver transplant program is added, it would enhance Avera’s other programs. Avera would need to get more aggressive on blood donations and other areas necessary for liver transplant, Flicek said. “It just makes us raise the bar a little bit more for our medical staff.”
Beth Plahn, director of transplant services at Avera McKennan Hospital, said having transplant programs improves the overall institution. “It makes your organization technically better. It’s good for the community to have that caliber of services in the state,” she said. In addition, Plahn said if the hospital isn’t adding other transplant procedures, a highly qualified surgeon isn’t utilized to the benefit of the community. Surgeons trained in kidney transplants also are trained to do pancreas and liver transplants…. “Your outcomes are going to be better if done locally,” Plahn said.
Avera McKennan’s kidney transplant program was ranked in the best possible category of “better than predicted” by www.ustransplant.org. Program outcomes are analyzed by the government and posted periodically on a public web site.
Avera McKennan’s bone marrow transplant program became accredited by the Foundation for Accreditation of Cellular Therapy in 2004. Many large-size programs do not have the accreditation, said Kelly McCaul, medical director for bone marrow transplantation at Avera McKennan. “It took thousands and thousands of hours,” McCaul said. “It’s a lot of work.” In addition, some insurance companies only cover FACT-accredited programs. “It sets a standard, it sets a tone,” he said. “It’s proof to the world, you’re doing the best than any place in the world. Our successes are as good as any national or international organizations.”
The program recently upgraded to a midsize program. Avera performs about 50 (bone marrow) transplants per year and could be doing 75 to 90 transplants per year in the next five years, he said. “There’s only a few large-size transplant (programs),” McCaul said. A third physician would need to be added to the program in the next year, McCaul said.
“Truly we’re in the business of taking care of our patients in our region,” Flicek said. “I think it pushes the medical staff to a whole new sophistication. Your OR isn’t just nine-to-five; it’s anytime. The medical community has stepped up to the plate with this. They like the sophistication.”