#CPRSTip A broken patient link in CPRS effects VistA Imaging, IMed Consent and it could cause patient info to be saved to the wrong patient
— VeHU (@VAeHealthU) July 11, 2012
Monthly Archives: August 2013
Patients at Martinsburg VA medical center displaced by mold
Domiciliary housing 175 patients at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Martinsburg, W.Va., has been closed after tests showed the presence of mold in many of the rooms.
The mold was discovered Thursday in the fan coils of air-conditioning units in the domiciliary, and patients were moved out on Friday, according to VA officials. Many of them are being housed in Martinsburg area hotels during the clean-up work, which the VA said will take two months.
Many of the patients affected are being treated for substance abuse and mental health disorders, according to veterans at the facility.
“We’ve been treated like second-class citizens,” said Dwight Long, a Navy veteran who said he is being treated for post traumatic stress disorder.
The VA described the health risk from the mold as “very low.”
“The safety of our veterans, visitors and staff is paramount in all that we do,” Jonathan Fierer, chief of staff of the facility, said in a statement. “Although the health risks from this type of mold exposure are very low, the medical center leadership felt the best course of action was to move all domiciliary patients until the remediation process is complete.”
VA officials said the moldy air-conditioning units are not connected to other buildings on the campus, including the 69-bed hospital.
Ann R. Brown, the medical center director, said in a statement that patient care and the medical center’s daily operational activities will not be interrupted. “We are making every effort to ensure this process is as smooth and expeditious as possible so that our veterans can move back into their rooms as quickly as possible,” she said
The Martinsburg facility provides care care to veterans in southeastern Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia.
via Patients at Martinsburg VA medical center displaced by mold.
Officials at troubled VA hospitals received big bonuses – CBS News
Officials at troubled VA hospitals received big bonuses – CBS News.
(CBS News) NEW YORK — In January, a CBS News investigation found that a veterans’ hospital in Pittsburgh knew for more than a year that it had an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, but kept it secret until five patients died and 21 others became ill.
Last fall, Dave and Bob Nicklas spoke to CBS News after losing their 87-year-old father to Legionnaires’ disease. William Nicklas, a Navy veteran, caught the deadly pneumonia at the Pittsburgh VA.
Bob wanted accountability.
It was a preventable situation,” he said. “And the VA chose not to do anything about it. And if something was done, my dad would be alive today.”
After the CBS News investigation, the VA’s inspector general found the Pittsburgh VA failed to prevent the outbreak.
CDC report reveals breakdowns in handling of deadly outbreak at VA hospital
The man who oversees that hospital is Regional Director Michael Moreland. Just days after that finding, the department gave him a $62,895 service award for saving the government money on a hospital construction project, and for starting a new infection prevention program.
I hope that award, that has blood all over it, the deaths of five veterans, I hope that he sleeps well at night,” said Maureen Ciarolla, who lost her 83-year-old father, Navy veteran John Ciarolla to the outbreak.
“He never came off the ventilator,” she said. “He never recovered from that.”
Last year, Veterans Affairs gave out nearly $97 million in bonuses. Now, Congress plans to review the bonuses given to VA officials who oversaw hospitals that had problems with patient care. For example, according to the Inspector General:
- The Buffalo VA exposed over 700 patients to hepatitis over a two-year period — by reusing insulin pens. CBS News has learned that during that time, Upstate New York Regional director David West was awarded nearly $26,000 in bonuses.
- Failure to monitor mental health patients at the Atlanta VA led to three deaths. CBS News found its former director James Clark received over $31,000 in bonuses the years two of those patients died.
- Records show hospital director Terry Gerigk Wolf got a $13,000 bonus the year the Pittsburgh VA failed to prevent, then mismanaged the Legionnaires’ outbreak
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The Nicklas brothers, and Maureen Ciarolla are suing the VA for the deaths of their fathers in the outbreak.
“It’s a slap in the face to every veteran and their families,” Ciarolla said.
In a statement, the VA said it “takes seriously any issue that occurs at one of our 1,700 facilities,” and that veterans are being well served by a caring and effective workforce. The VA told us Michael Mooreland’s $63,000 award is under review. CBS News contacted the officials for their reaction. We never heard back from one, another declined comment and the other two referred CBS News to the VA.
More VA madness: Bonuses despite dead patients
More VA madness: Bonuses despite dead patients.
There have been at least seven instances where bonuses have been paid to Veterans Administration officials even though they were on watch when hospitals failed to protect patients, and in one situation, five veterans died.
Using publicly available resources, WND has identified cases in which Eric Shinseki, now chief of the Veterans Administration, has allowed bonuses to managers in the middle of health-related and other scandals. It’s happened at VA hospitals in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Waco, Dayton, Dallas, Buffalo and for several managers who approved a number of egregious spending items for two human resources conferences in Orlando, Fla.
The House Committee on Veterans Affairs has been investigating the matter and the chairman, Republican Jeff Miller of Florida, told WND that all these scandals taken together produce an environment where failure is rewarded.
“The continuous discovery of more and more instances of VA executives being rewarded despite failing to properly do their job is worrisome, to the say the least. This policy of applauding failure is detrimental to VA’s capability to fulfill its most basic of duties, caring for the needs of our veterans.”
The most troubling case happened in the VA Hospital System in Pittsburgh because Shinseki not only intervened in local staffing decisions but then washed his hands of the mess, only to have that same hospital wind up in another scandal about a year later, this one leading to at least five deaths.
Regional Director Michael Moreland, who oversees five VA hospitals including the Pittsburgh facility, was given the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award, which included a bonus of $62, 895 just three days before a scathing report from the VA Office of Inspector General, which listed a litany of systemic breakdowns at VAPHS that led directly to a legionella outbreak , which caused the deaths of at least five patients.
For the years covered by the OIG report, Moreland had given VAPHS Chief Executive Officer Terry Wolf perfect marks on all performance reviews.
What makes that scandal even more troubling is that this was the third time in six years in which legionella was part of a scandal at that hospital and Shinseki blew up the second scandal while never holding any of the hierarchy responsible for any of the three scandals.
In 2007, then North Carolina Democratic Congressman Brad Miller, the chair of the Sub-Committee on Investigations in the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology, led an investigation into the alleged willful destruction of a strand of legionella from a collection of the well-respected research team of Dr. Victor Yu and his partner Dr. Janet Stout, which allegedly occurred on Dec. 4, 2006. His investigation cited the Associate Chief of Staff Mona Melhem in particular, while holding her superiors, Dr. Raj Jain (Chief of Staff), Terry Wolf, and Michael Moreland, responsible for a failure to oversee.
That entire team was still in place when Dr. Anna Chacko arrived at VAPHS to become the head of radiology in the summer of 2008. She would be at VAPHS for a bit more than a year and a lightning rod the entire time.
Chacko was the subject of numerous complaints of bullying, disruptive and manipulative behavior, which culminated in a decision in favor of her removal from VAPHS by a bureaucratic panel called Administrative Board of Investigation in April 2009.
Chacko immediately reached out to Miller, claiming that she was being retaliated against because she was a whistleblower. The aggressor in this case, Chacko claimed, was Dr. Mona Melhem. Chacko claimed that she had uncovered numerous schemes and failures by Melhem and all reports of bullying behavior were the work of a carefully orchestrated retaliation campaign.
In May 2009, Miller wrote to Shinseki urging him to reverse the decision and install Chacko back in place because she was the aggrieved one .
“Last year, this subcommittee held a hearing to consider actions by Dr. Mona Melhem, a high ranking official at VAPHS. The subcommittee investigation resulted in harsh criticism of the management at VAPHS, and especially of Dr. Melhem’s conduct. The subcommittee concluded that Dr. Melhem ordered the destruction of a 30-year research collection – destroyed out of personal animosity for the two researchers, and that her explanation of her conduct to the system’s chief of staff was false.
“Dr. Chacko, who was brought in as the fourth chief of the VAPHS radiology department in five years in September of 2008, complained to superiors about Dr. Melhem’s conduct in the radiology department; Dr. Chacko alleged that it was improper and had potentially compromised patient care, including ordering a X-ray for an employee who Dr. Chacko believed to be not eligible for VA care, purchasing unsuitable radiology equipment and materials.”
Shinseki would reverse the decision by VAPHS and Chacko would return to work in August 2009. Allegations of bullying behavior against Chacko continued, and after dozens more reached Moreland himself she was put on administrative leave in October 2009, and terminated, a rarity in VA bureaucracy, in January 2010, this time with no objection from either Miller or Shinseki.
The rest of the hospital hierarchy was still in place, still with no discipline or other structural changes and reforms, when a wholly separate strand of legionella was mishandled, infecting the water supply and leading to an outbreak and the deaths of at least five veterans, according to a report.
And a staff member on the House Committee on Veteran’s Affairs revealed that this pattern speaks to a larger problem with the management style and information gathering techniques of Shinseki.
“The situation certainly gives rise to concerns that Central Office has made decisions while not providing timely and accurate information from leadership in the Pittsburgh Health Care System and VISN 4 (the region which includes VAPHS),” the staffer report said.
VAPHS is not the only example of Shinseki approving bonuses to managers linked to scandals which led to deaths. An investigation by Atlanta’s WBS found that several managers at the VA hospital in Atlanta (VAMC) received tens of thousands in bonuses even as another inspector general report found that VAMC botched how it handled high-risk patients, leading to at least three deaths.
According to the WBS investigation Atlanta VA Medical Center Director James Clark pocketed a $13,000 bonus in 2011 and another $17,000 worth of salary bonuses in 2010. Lawrence Biro, a former regional director of five hospitals, including VAMC, received $18,000 in bonuses during 2011, according to the WBS investigation.
Carl Lowe, director of the Waco VA Regional Office, received bonuses totaling $53,436 between 2007 and 2011, according to an investigation done by the Austin-American Statesman. He received these bonuses despite an August 2013 VA OIG report which found that 40 percent of the disability claims inspectors reviewed at the Waco VA Regional Office were inaccurately processed and requested fresher training for employees over the same time period.
In 2010, Dayton VA Medical Center Director Guy Richardson received an $11,874 bonus even as that center’s dental clinic came under investigation for allowing unsafe sanitary practices by one dentist over 18 years. During 2010, the dental clinic was closed for several weeks and the VA determined it needed to offer free screenings to 535 patients who had received invasive dental procedures from Dwight M. Pemberton, the dentist at the center of the scandal.
A 2013 investigation from television station WIVB of Buffalo found that VA Health Care Upstate New York Network Director David West received nearly $26,000 in executive performance bonuses in 2010 and 2011 even as an investigation by that station found five boxes of records were contaminated with mold and mildew and hundreds more contained mismatched names and Social Security numbers.
An investigation by WFAA in Dallas found two top managers received $50,000 in bonuses over two years (2010-2012) even as the station was investigating the VA hospital in Dallas for substandard care.
In 2012, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins raised concerns directly to Shinseki over bonuses to a number of VA managers who were involved in the approval of millions in spending on two human resources conferences in Orlando, Fla., in the summer of 2011. These conferences became the subject of a scathing VAOIG report and are currently being investigated by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The two conferences cost taxpayers $6.1 million and included such frivolous spending as: $49,516 to produce a parody video, $72,000 for snacks, and $84,000 for promotional items (pens, hats, etc.). One of the managers who received a bonus worked on the parody video.
A report from the Government Accountability Office from July 2013 also came to the conclusion that there were serious and systemic problems with the protocols used to reward performance bonuses in the VA.
“Veterans Health Administration has not reviewed the goals set by medical centers and networks and therefore does not have reasonable assurance that the goals make a clear link between performance pay and providers’ performance,” the report said.
Later in the report, GAO made this point.
“All providers GAO reviewed who were eligible for performance pay received it, including all five providers who had an action taken against them related to clinical performance in the same year the pay was given. The related provider performance issues included failing to read mammograms and other complex images competently, practicing without a current license, and leaving residents unsupervised during surgery.”
WND requests of the VA, and Shinseki, for comment did not generate responses.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/more-va-madness-bonuses-despite-dead-patients/#rRh4SBsleGhkthc8.99
Wait times for colorectal cancer procedures at VA hospitals increase to 32 days
Wait times for colorectal cancer procedures at VA hospitals increase to 32 days.
A study published in the August print issue of the Journal of Oncology Practice shows that from 1998-2008, wait times for colorectal cancer operations at Veterans Administration hospitals increased from 19 to 32 days. But researchers think longer waits may be a reflection of several unmeasured variables including more careful care, staffing, and patient conditions or preferences.
“Some of it is purely staffing – we don’t have enough surgeons or nurses or anesthetists or O.R. time to meet the need,” says Martin McCarter, MD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and surgical oncologist at the University of Colorado Hospital. “But some of this increase in wait times for cancer procedures at the VA may be due to an increased focus on quality and outcomes. Better care takes time.”
The study used data from 17,487 patients listed in the VA Central Cancer Registry. McCarter and colleagues including first author Ryan Merkow, MD, former surgery resident at UCH, compared the time between diagnosis and definitive, cancer-directed therapy such as colectomy or rectal resection in 1998 and 2008. During this 10-year period, the median time from diagnosis to treatment increased from 19 to 32 days. At high-volume centers, increases were even more pronounced, jumping 14 days for the treatment of colon cancer and nearly 30 days for the treatment of rectal cancer.
“What’s missing in this study are any cancer-related outcomes – what’s the effect of these longer wait times on survival or quality of life?” says McCarter. Reframed, the question is whether more careful care is worth the wait – is it better to treat quickly in the days after diagnosis or to adopt the more modern, more careful approach that can push back treatment?
“For example, perhaps more VA doctors are taking into account a patient’s comorbidities – maybe someone has lung or heart problems in addition to cancer. And it can take a few days or even a few weeks to bring specialists for these other conditions onboard,” McCarter says. McCarter points out that this question of the influence of time-to-treatment on outcomes is a larger question in the overall strategy of cancer care. “Although everybody assumes it’s best to treat cancer as soon as possible, by the time they’re detected, most tumors have been growing for years. It may be that a two-week delay before treatment makes no difference and that taking time to better plan care is a worthwhile trade,” McCarter says…
The study also shows that patient, tumor and hospital factors influence time to treatment. Specifically, patients over age 55 were treated slightly more quickly than younger ones, and more advanced tumors were treated more quickly than less advanced ones – both findings match the intuitive need to treat a more dangerous tumor efficiently. But then married (vs. unmarried) and white (vs. black) patients treated at low-volume (vs. high-volume) centers, and at the same hospital at which they were diagnosed also saw shorter wait times between diagnosis and treatment. Some of these factors may reflect other unmeasured influences such as a patient’s desire for a second opinion before committing to surgery.
“VA’s across the country realize that timeliness of care is an important issue. There’s tremendous pressure to move people efficiently through the system. For example, wait times for an elective hernia repair may be up to 9 months because cancer patients take priority over elective or more benign situations and there just aren’t enough resources to go around,” McCarter says.
“The challenge for the future is to have our cake and eat it too – to have quality along with the efficiency of shorter wait times,” McCarter says.
Medical student claims that he was kicked out of medical in retaliation for raising concerns about patient safety at Atlanta VA Blowing the whistle? | News Feature | Creative Loafing Atlanta
Medical student claims that he was kicked out of medical in retaliation for raising concerns about patient safety at Atlanta VA
Blowing the whistle? | News Feature | Creative Loafing Atlanta.
After studying medicine for more than three-and-a-half years, Kevin Kuritzky was 41 days away from graduating from Emory University when he received the news.
He’d been expelled.
Emory claims Kuritzky was dismissed for “plagiarism, repeatedly missing required clerkship training involving patient care, lying to his professors, and engaging in other unprofessional, dishonest and unethical conduct.”
But according to a complaint filed Jan. 31 in DeKalb County Superior Court, Kuritzky believes something else was a factor in his expulsion.
Kuritzky claims in the lawsuit that Emory officials kicked him out after he complained about patient safety and possible health care violations at Grady Memorial Hospital and the Veterans Administration Medical Center. Both medical centers are associated with Emory’s medical school.
The lawsuit alleges that Kuritzky was concerned about being left alone and unsupervised while caring for patients at the VA Medical Center for approximately nine hours, and that “persistent tension and hostility” by Grady’s staff “negatively impacted patient care.” It also states that an Emory official “demanded he retract his statements” about the VA hospital.
The day after the lawsuit was filed, Emory responded with a 43-exhibit motion to dismiss it, claiming the allegations were without merit….
Regarding the allegations, Emory only would release the following statement: “Mr. Kuritzky’s claims are frivolous. Emory will address the details of Mr. Kuritzky’s claims more fully in court.”
Kuritzky isn’t the first to allege retaliation by Emory and substandard care at the hospitals. Several former Emory professors and a physician have filed similar lawsuits or have publicly complained in the past. What’s more, a federal report has documented substandard conditions at Grady….
Topeka, Kansas VA closes ER at night due to doctor shortage-Lawmakers looking for answers on VA staffing | CJOnline.com
Topeka VA closes ER at night due to shortage of doctors.
Topeka, Kansas VA closes ER at night due to doctor shortage
Lawmakers looking for answers on VA staffing | CJOnline.com.
A doctor shortage has forced a local veterans hospital to regularly divert patients away from its emergency room, and state and federal lawmakers want more information about what caused the shortage.
Jim Gleisberg, a spokesman for Colmery-O’Neil VA Medical Center, said that for about three months the hospital has been making the determination at about 3 p.m. each day as to whether the ER will be properly staffed to handle emergencies overnight or whether it will send patients to other hospitals.
“We do have a situation where we have a shortage of doctors and we need to make modifications,” Gleisberg said.
Gleisberg said ambulance companies are kept abreast of the ER’s status.
Gleisberg said the shortage wasn’t due to federal sequester cuts but to a “perfect storm” of three doctors leaving at about the same time. He said the facility has “had some problems recently with hiring enough doctors” but has made progress and the goal is to be fully staffed by September.
U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, contacted Colmery-O’Neil after her office was made aware of the diversions.
“While I’m relieved to hear the VA has taken steps to address the shortage and will be returning to a regular ER schedule in a few weeks, I am not comfortable with the response I received for the reason three doctors left simultaneously,” Jenkins said via email. “As such, I sent a letter to the Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Eric Shinseki, to ask for a more complete response. While turnover in any business is to be expected, mass departures are uncommon without extenuating circumstances.”
Jenkins’ office received a letter from Kansas Rep. Ramon Gonzalez, R-Perry, who visited Colmery-O’Neil last week while in Topeka for the announcement of Caleb Stegall’s nomination for the Kansas Court of Appeals.
Gonzalez said he wasn’t previously aware of the diversions. Nor was Rep. Virgil Weigel, D-Topeka, Gonzalez’ colleague on the House Veterans, Military and Homeland Security Committee.
Weigel, whose district includes Colmery-O’Neil, shared Jenkins’ uneasiness about the doctor exodus, saying it “seems rather odd that all of them would do that all in one shot.”
Weigel, a U.S. Army veteran, said he hasn’t sought treatment at Colmery-O’Neil himself, but his father has.
“For the most part I was pretty satisfied with the treatment he got there,” Weigel said.
Weigel said he had heard about staffing concerns in other parts of the VA system, but Colmery-O’Neil’s situation seemed somewhat unique.
“The staffing at the VA probably does fluctuate,” Weigel said. “But that does seem a little out of character for all of them to leave at the same time.”
Gleisberg said five medical doctors have left the facility in the past 12 months and the VA is “always looking for doctors and nurses.”
Gleisberg advised that if veterans are having true medical emergencies they should call an ambulance, and the paramedics will know which medical facility to go to.
Last week a veteran with a serious chainsaw wound drove himself to Colmery-O’Neil, where he was triaged and transferred to another hospital because the VA facility didn’t have the surgical capabilities he required.
The VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System includes Colmery-O’Neil, another large hospital in Leavenworth and 11 smaller facilities.
The system appears overdue for an accreditation check.
The Joint Commission is a nonprofit accrediting agency that handles the VA system. Its policy is to have unannounced on-site accreditation surveys every 18 to 36 months.
The last such survey in the eastern Kansas VA system occurred June 25, 2010.
“I can’t really explain that well,” Joint Commission spokesman Bret Coons said after checking the commission’s quality report for the system.
Coons said it didn’t necessarily mean there was anything out of the ordinary and Joint Commission staff would look into it further.
Gleisberg said he believes the survey delay stems from protracted contract negotiations between the VA and the Joint Commission and he is expecting a full accreditation check at any time.
Joint Commission staff did do a spot-check at Colmery-O’Neil in March 2013 that Gleisberg said was in response to a complaint of patient falls and a “sentinel event,” which, according to the commission’s website “is an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof.”
Gleisberg said the spot-check resulted in only one finding: a storage closet that wasn’t properly inventoried.
“The last four months we have been putting in a process that shows that when a piece of equipment is put into that closet, it’s clean and tagged appropriately,” Gleisberg said.
Vet commits suicide at Ft. Harrison VA hospital campus
A 62-year-old man committed suicide Monday at the Veterans Administration hospital campus at Fort Harrison.
“We did have a death here on campus,” VA Montana spokeswoman Terrie Casey said. “Obviously we’re saddened and concerned about the event.”
She said the deceased man was a veteran. She did not immediately know whether he was a patient receiving care at the facility.
Lewis and Clark County Coroner M.E. “Mickey” Nelson confirmed that the man died from a single gunshot wound in a restroom with the door closed. It was reported at about 12:30 p.m.
VA police and Lewis and Clark sheriff’s deputies participated in the investigation.
Nelson said it’s the first shooting death he recalls at either of the Helena-area hospitals in his approximately three decades as coroner.
Firearms are prohibited on VA campuses, including in vehicles, Casey said.
As many as 6,500 veterans commit suicide each year, according to a 2012 VA report. Veterans account for more than 20 percent of all suicides in the nation.
The VA has worked to improve veterans’ access to mental health treatment. At Fort Harrison, a new 24-bed mental health unit was completed in 2011, with eight beds each for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and acute mental health issues.
More good news from Michael Moreland & VISN4-Man rescued from Coatesville VA trench collapse – Daily Local News
Another example of the wonderful oversight of what’s going on in VISN 4, by the highest paid VISN director in the land!
CALN — A worker was rescued Sunday morning after being trapped for more than two hours when a trench collapsed at a construction site at the Coatesville Veterans Administration Medical Center.
The Chester County Rescue Task Force was called about 8:30 a.m. the site where new electrical conduit was being installed.
The worker was trapped up to his neck in soil in a narrow trench, according to a news release from the task force.
Firefighters from the Veterans Administration Medical Center’s fire station and Coatesville dug dirt away from the victim’s upper body, but he was still trapped by tons of dirt, so rescuers called in the task force.
The task force, composed of fire personnel from around Chester County, helped secure the trench using shoring panels while working to rescue the trapped worker.
While the worker was trapped, medical personnel secured an oxygen line for breathing and an intravenous line to his body to provide fluids.
After the victim was freed, he was transported to Paoli Hospital for treatment.
No other injuries were reported.
The incident is under investigation by the police department at the medical center, according to the information from the task force….
via Man rescued from Coatesville VA trench collapse – Daily Local News.
Success of Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System liver transplant program reveals faults in system | TribLIVE
Success of Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System liver transplant program reveals faults in system
The success of a liver transplant program at the Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System is boosting the demand for livers here and highlighting the flaws of an organ allocation system in which the risk of dying can depend upon where you live.
The Pittsburgh VA performed 48 transplants last year. According to government reports, that’s more than twice as many as the VA’s two other liver transplant centers — in Portland, Ore., and Houston — combined.
As of this month, 186 people awaited liver transplants at the VA facility here. Coupled with 207 people on a waiting list at UPMC and 80 people at Allegheny General Hospital, that leaves nearly 500 individuals waiting for livers.
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) allocates organs by geographic region, and the number available hasn’t increased dramatically. A shortage of livers for transplant exists, and about 1,500 people die each year awaiting a transplant.
Dr. Abhinav Humar, chief of transplantation at UPMC, said those factors mean that people needing transplants in regions with greatest demand might be much sicker by the time an organ is available.
“VA patients come from all over the country to Pittsburgh, and the reason they do is because they’ve got a great team of doctors and nurses. But the organs don’t come with them,” Humar said,
UNOS is considering a new mathematical formula to make organ allocation more equitable by redrawing the nation’s 11 transplant regions based on distribution and demand for donated organs.
“This is gerrymandering for the public good. We have applied to transplantation the same math used for political redistricting, school assignments, wildlife preservation and zoning issues,” said Dr. Dorry L. Segev, a transplant surgeon and associate professor of surgery and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University who led the team that developed the proposed reallocation formula.
Doctors evaluate candidates for a liver transplant according to the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease, or MELD, scale, which scores each person based on how urgently he or she needs a transplant within the next three months. Those with the highest MELD score go to the top of each region’s list.
Humar said the average MELD score at transplantation at the Pittsburgh transplant centers, which was once 26 or 27, climbed to 32 or 33. The average score at transplantation in Indiana and Ohio is 22.
The transplant network’s liver committee is considering different map options as it debates how to improve fairness without having to fly organs too far around the country.
“Details of this proposal and its potential local impact has not been fully assessed. We look forward to discussing improved access to transplant care for all those in need,” VA spokeswoman Ndidi Mojay said….
Read more: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4562422-74/transplant-liver-organ#ixzz2d5qtMpvh
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