Posted on 11/11/2005 5:48:18 AM PST by Calpernia
ORANGE, Calif. - Over the last two years, more than 30 people died awaiting liver transplants at UCI Medical Center here as the hospital turned down scores of organs that might have saved them, according to a federal report.
Following that report, the federal government yesterday rescinded its approval for the liver transplant program.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a letter to UCI chief executive Ralph Cygan, said that, effective immediately, it would stop paying for liver transplants for Medicare recipients on UCI's waiting list. While the agency's action does not close the program, it will be difficult to operate without federal certification.
(snip)
Although patients may not know it, the University of California, Irvine, medical center has not had a full-time liver transplant surgeon since July 2004.
The center has performed just five liver transplants this year and has consistently fallen below the minimum number required by the federal government to maintain funding, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
(snip)
In refusing organs over the last year, the center often cited their poor quality.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Thirty diedwaiting fortransplants
Organs were available, but hospital said no
By CHARLES ORNSTEIN and ALAN ZAREMBO
Los Angeles Times
Over the last two years, more than 30 people died awaiting liver transplants at UCI Medical Center in Orange, Calif., as the hospital turned down scores of organs that might have saved them, according to a federal report.
More than 100 UCI patients still are waiting for transplants, and 28 have joined the roster this year alone - despite a staffing shortage that dampens their prospects for a transplant.
Although patients may not know it, the University of California, Irvine, medical center has not had a full-time liver transplant surgeon since July 2004.
The center has performed just five liver transplants this year and has consistently fallen below the minimum number required by the federal government to maintain funding, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Even when patients did get transplants, the report says, they did not fare as well as they should have. Only 68.6 percent of patients who received liver transplants at UCI from January 2002 to June 2004 survived at least a year - well below the 77 percent survival rate required for federal certification.
Research has shown that surgical success rates at hospitals are linked to the number of procedures.
Excerpt
Socialized medicine/prolife pings.
Boy! You would think that this is something that would be required to be disclosed to patients.
Couldn't this hospital go in with several others that only infrequently see transplants, and share a pool of doctors? Thus raising the experience and familiarity level?
They get less federal funding then.
Sounds like a bungaloed system. Payment ought to be per organ per success, or something on that order.
I agree. That was one of my posts of posting this. Federal monies are fought over with State and County Hospitals. They tap into local tax monies too.
That was one of my posts of posting this.
Was suppose to be:
That was one of my points of posting this.
As a comparison, my brother had a liver transplant at the Mayo Clinic two and a half years ago ... they do about 20 a year and their survival rate is over 90%. Anybody who would consider going to this place needs to be educated.
In the interests of perspective, remember that thirty people at other hospitals got the livers that might have gone to the patients at UCI, and probably lived.
bump
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