St. Francis Hospital closing its heart-transplant

[Kenosha]

program

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080222_1_A9_spanc44056

quote:
St. Francis Hospital no longer will perform heart transplants, meaning that Tulsans who need a new heart likely will have to travel to Oklahoma City or outside the state for the surgery.

"We very much regret that their program has closed," said Dr. David Nelson, chief of the heart-transplant medicine division at the Nazih Zuhdi Transplantation Institute at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City.

"We think they provided an excellent service for the Tulsa communi ty and that part of Oklahoma."

Since beginning in late 1994, the St. Francis heart-transplant program has performed more than 140 transplants, according to a statement from St. Francis officials.

But a change in how hearts are distributed by the United Network of Organ Sharing has resulted in too few donor hearts for the St. Francis program to continue, the statement said.

"Previously, all hearts from donors within Oklahoma were offered to Oklahoma recipients before being offered out of state," the statement said. "Under the new policy, donor hearts are offered to any patient within a 500-mile radius who are deemed to be in the most urgent need category before being
offered to less urgent patients within Oklahoma."

Since the policy went into effect in August 2006, more than 50 percent of donor hearts from Oklahoma donors have been transported out of state, the statement said.

"The total number of heart transplants within the state has fallen substantially over the last two years," it said.

The bulk of St. Francis' transplant candidates were less-urgent, status-2 patients, according to Integris' Nelson.

Before the United Network of Organ Sharing change, 77 percent of St. Francis' heart-transplant patients were less-urgent, status-2 patients, compared with 40 percent of Integris' transplant patients, he said.

Fewer available hearts also jeopardized St. Francis' Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements, the statement said.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid made a policy change in 2007 to require programs to maintain a specific volume of annual heart transplants to be reimbursed.

The yearly volume required by CMS is 10 heart transplants. For the last five years, St. Francis has averaged 7.6 heart transplants.

Also, insurance companies have been increasingly referring Oklahomans to out-of-state centers.

Lastly, improvements in treatment for advanced heart disease have made transplantation unnecessary in some patients, St. Francis' statement said.

"Going forward, patients who need heart transplantation will likely be referred by their physician to the place the doctor chooses and will get the best care," it said.

St. Francis will continue its Heart Transplant Clinic each Tuesday to provide follow-up treatment for patients who have received heart transplants there, according to the statement.

Nelson said Tulsa-area residents will not be hurt by the St. Francis closure.

"It is in no way a handicap for us to provide the same service for Tulsa residents," he said.

Patients awaiting a heart transplant need only live within four hours of a transplant center, Nelson said. In fact, Integris' patients have come from Arkansas, Kansas, northern Texas and New Mexico, he said.

Many patients get testing done in their own communities to decrease the number of Oklahoma City visits, he said.

"We are very well networked with people in the Tulsa area," Nelson said.

More than 2,000 people undergo heart transplants each year in the U.S. Nearly 3,000 remain on waiting lists to receive new hearts.

About 20 percent of those patients will die waiting, according to the United Network of Organ Sharing.

Network data show that 23 people in Oklahoma were waiting for a heart transplant as of Feb. 15.

[YoungTulsan]

I better cut back on the pizza and beer then.