The director of the University of Iowa’s organ transplant program today told the Board of Regents that organ transplant volume is bouncing back after almost a decade of dramatically fewer kidney, pancreas and liver transplants. Dr. Alan Reed says that upon arriving in Iowa City a little more than a year ago, he found high quality, but slow service.
Reed says the real problem was that it took on average one year to being referred for a transplant, to being list for a transplant. “And that was entirely too long.” In what Reed called a “volume driven business,” the number of U-I kidney transplants has doubled in the last three years because Iowans previously leaving the state are now coming to the University of Iowa.
But he says there are still Des Moines area liver transplant patients leaving the state, and it frustrates him. Reed says of the two health systems in Des Moines, the Mercy healthcare system has partnered with the University of Iowa, but he says the Iowa Health care system, despite numerous discussions, “simply doesn’t want to work with us and they send their referrals to Nebraska.”
Reed told the Regents that U-I Hospitals will soon be consolidating services in a new transplant center.
Not posted. Can bump as far as Saturday.