June 2006

 New Outpatient Transplant Clinic Expands Capacity and Services

On June 21, 2006, Dr. Christian Larsen, director of the Emory Transplant Center, presided over the dedication of the new Mason Outpatient Transplant Clinic on the 6th floor of Emory Clinic Building B. Tripling the size of the former location, the new clinic has a waiting room capacity of more than 80 patients, computer and Internet access, patient education classrooms, six patient-friendly evaluation suites with multi-media education capability, 20 exam rooms, increased infusion room capacity, advanced biopsy procedure rooms with high tech ultrasound equipment and expanded clinical laboratory space. As part of the clinic, patients will use pagers, similar to those in restaurants, for more freedom of movement while waiting. An LCD monitor in the waiting room provides updates on waiting times, physician and other caregiver availability, education programs and current information about transplantation.

The former site of the outpatient clinic had more than 17,000 patient encounters in 2005, including 7,000 lab visits, 400 infusions and 10,000 provider visits. That same year, the ETC evaluated over 1,000 potential patients and living donors. With the increased capacity provided by the new site, the clinic projects more than 20,000 patient encounters in 2006 and more than 23,000 in 2007.

The new clinic was funded by a $1.8 million grant from the Carlos and Marguerite Mason Trust, administered by Wachovia Trust, which was only the most recent in a long chain of gifts from the Mason Trust to support transplant care and research. The ETC is the only institution in the state offering a full spectrum of transplant services — heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas and islet — with more than 300 adult and pediatric transplants performed annually.

Dr. Larsen viewed the clinic dedication as signposting an exciting future for the center. "In the early years of transplantation the focus was simply to get a surgeon and an organ to save a life, but this is of course far too narrow a perspective," he says. "To truly restore life and health for the whole person requires a team of physicians, surgeons, nurses, social workers, infectious disease specialists, psychiatrists, and dermatologists matched with an administrative team, financial coordinators and more. This clinic gives those teams a home."

"We’re still not satisfied, though," he adds. "The medications we use to keep people alive cause serious side effects, and we sometimes lose transplanted organs to rejection. But we've come a long way over the past decade in developing new and better medications. We've recruited new surgeons and scientists and administrators, the transplant center has blossomed, and we've broken down barriers and brought heart, lung, kidney and all transplant services into the same clinic to work together."

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