CDC Recommends New Guidelines for Organ Transplantation

Updated 3/2017-- all links removed (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. 

There have been several cases of HIV or hepatitis transmitted via solid organ transplantation.  The CDC is recommending new guidelines which would replace the 1994 Public Health Service (PHS) Guidelines for Preventing Transmission of HIV through Transplantation of Human Tissue and Organs.  The draft guidelines is 159 pages long.  The most significant changes involve:

● expanding the guideline to include hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV), in addition to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV);
● utilizing factors known to be associated with increased likelihood of HIV, HBV or HCV to identify potential donors at increased risk for transmitting infection;
● distinguishing between expected and unexpected transmission of HBV and HCV in goals for prevention; and
● limiting the focus to solid organ transplants and vessel conduits recovered for organ transplant purposes.

I am a strong proponent of organ donation, but anything we can do to improve the safety for all involved is a good thing to me.  


REFERENCES
CDC: Protect Organ Transplant Patients from Unintended Disease Transmission; September 21st, 2011;  Matthew J. Kuehnert, MD,
Director, Office of Blood, Organ, and Other Tissue Safety

Draft 2011 Public Health Service (PHS) Guideline for Reducing Transmission of HIV, HBV, and HCV through Solid Organ Transplantation (www.regulations.gov, docket CDC-2011-0011-000)

Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. 

Center for Advancing Health (CFAH), Prepared Patient Forum, is the host for this week’s Grand Rounds. You can read this week’s virtual tour edition here (photo credit).

Welcome to Better Health’s Grand Rounds Volume 7, Number 44!

This is our second time hosting Grand Rounds and we’re excited about sharing the posts we received.  The theme of this week’s collection came from a recent Health Affairs blog post by CFAH president, Jessie Gruman, Patient Advocates: Flies In The Ointment Of Evidence-Based Care, which addresses a few of the many challenges of basing health care practices, policies, and decisions on evidence of effectiveness. ……….

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Check out @globalsurgeon paper in July Bulletin of @AmCollSurgeons: Beyond Volunteerism – Augmenting Surgical Care in Resource Limited Settings (pdf file)

Surgical care was recently characterized as “the neglected stepchild of public health.” Critical storages of health care workers throughout the developing world have led to “calls to action” and have reinforced the need for safer surgery. …………..

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H/T to @angryorthopod who tweeted “I liked this reminder from @drpullen for physicians and patients "Don't Trust Dr. Google." http://ow.ly/5Mud6”

I jokingly tell my patients that I am consulting with Dr. Google when I go online in the exam room to find information, but in fact I rarely use the Google search engine to access health care information. …….

When my daughter was in an entrepreneurship program at the University of Portland (e-scholars) I told her of my frustrations with having easy one click access to the best free online medical information I use in the office every day. Together we put up a web site called Exam Room Favorites that is designed to be an easy to use home page for physicians. ………….

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Dr. Rob Lamberts (@doc_rob) was recently a presenter in the CDC Public Health Grand Rounds:   Electronic Health Records: What’s in it for Everyone? (text and video)

Electronic health records (EHRs) allow for the systematic collection and management of patient health information in a form that can be shared across multiple health care settings. …….

This session of Public Health Grand Rounds explored the issues of EHR implementation with particular attention to public and population health while addressing concerns of cost, patient confidentiality, and other challenges. .…….

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This is worth reading/listening to if you missed it on NPR yesterday:  'Twelve Breaths': Lessons From The End Of Life (photo credit)

When life draws to an end, family, caregivers and medical professionals face a flurry of often heartbreaking decisions. Are there any last treatments to try? How much longer can a patient hold on? When is it time to turn off the ventilator — and who gets to decide?  ………….

Lee Gutkin's essay collection, Twelve Breaths a Minute, captures the experiences of doctors, caregivers, family members, 911 dispatchers and others who have learned valuable lessons from witnessing life's final moments.  …………..

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H/T to @MtnMD who tweeted the link to this Huffington Post article: Humpback Whale Puts On Show For Men Who Saved Her (VIDEO)

When Michael Fishbach set out for his day of boating around the beautiful waters of the Sea of Cortez, he probably didn't think that it would be the day he and his friends would become wildlife heroes. As luck would have it, that's exactly what happened…….

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BYU exhibit features African-American quilts (photo credit) (Deseret News article by Carma Wadley):

Quilting has been part of American landscape for centuries, but each culture has taken the art form and made it its own.

The quilts you see in "From Heart to Hand: African American Quilts from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts" at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art are "very different from the quilts that many Utahns make," says Paul L. Anderson, MOA curator for the show. Yet, they have a folk-art quality, a homespun charm that makes them appealing, he says. …..