UPMC refers out transplant patients

UPMC refers out transplant patients

Luis Fabregas is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 412-320-7998 or via e-mail.

By Luis Fabregas
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, June 24, 2011

UPMC is telling patients seeking live-donor kidney and liver transplants that they can go elsewhere and has postponed three scheduled kidney surgeries since suspending the programs May 9, health system officials said on Thursday.

"Obviously, we don't want to refer patients elsewhere, but we've done this conscientiously because we've got to get through this," Andrea V. Cotter, senior vice president and chief communications officer for the hospital system, told Tribune-Review editors and reporters.

The live-donor kidney and liver transplant programs at UPMC and the live-donor kidney transplant program at Children's Hospital were suspended after the hepatitis C virus was transmitted to a kidney recipient at UPMC. Health system officials are confident human error is the sole contributing factor in the case, which the Trib first disclosed.

"It's definitely not a computer problem," Cotter said. "I feel very confident that it's isolated."

Before they can reopen the health system's internationally recognized transplant programs, UPMC leaders must await the results of a review and approval from the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit that manages the transplant program for the federal government, Cotter said.

UNOS representatives reviewed UPMC's program in May and told hospital officials that they were satisfied with their findings, Paul Wood, UPMC's vice president of public relations, told the newspaper.

A UNOS spokeswoman yesterday could not say if the case will come up for discussion at a meeting next week of its board in Richmond, Va.

Wood could not say if any UPMC patients chose to get listed at other transplant centers. Dan Laurent, a spokesman for rival Allegheny General Hospital, said four patients who were undergoing screening for a transplant at UPMC are now listed at AGH.

UPMC surgeons in 2010 performed 62 living-donor kidney transplants out of a total of 152 kidney transplants, according to UNOS figures. That's roughly five live-donor transplants per month.

In the hepatitis C case, UPMC workers "overlooked" a chart that contained information about the donor's infection, Wood said. The transplant process involves a screening that includes blood tests to check for infectious diseases. Officials suspended a nurse and demoted a transplant surgeon as a result of the incident.

"It's an error, and errors occur," Cotter said. "As much as we try to be perfectionists, the medical environment is fraught with points where that can occur. So the fact that this doesn't happen on a daily basis should be noted."

Cotter, who joined UPMC five months ago from IBM and oversees advertising, marketing and public relations, asserted the health system's stance that it will not sign a new contract with insurer Highmark Inc. once the current one expires June 30, 2012. She also promoted UPMC's recently announced contracts with three national insurers -- Aetna Inc., United HealthCare and Cigna Corp. -- and its new expanded contract with HealthAmerica.

"By bringing these other four companies, there's more competition and choice," she said.

It will be up to the region's employers to determine which insurance plans will be offered as options to their employees, Cotter said, noting that UPMC's insurance plan and the other insurers plan aggressive advertising efforts.

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