Demand for organ transplants continues to increase. In 2021, the most recent year for data, approximately 41,354 organ transplants were performed in the U.S., a 5.9% increase over the previous year and the first time the annual total has exceeded 40,000, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. To keep up with demand and prepare to serve the more than 105,000 patients currently on the national transplant waiting list, health systems need to find innovative ways to improve donor and patient experience while prioritizing quality and safety.
Both donors and recipients undergo extensive testing throughout the transplant journey. Therefore, high-quality testing with a quick turnaround time within a health system’s transplant diagnostics program is critical for ensuring patient care excellence. Having the right laboratory partner can help.
Improving Transplant Testing: a Comprehensive Approach
“In the wake of the pandemic, health systems are looking for ways to work more efficiently and more effectively for their patients, including in their high-cost areas, such as transplant centers,” says Ann Salm, PhD, director/medical science liaison lead, infectious disease and immunology, Quest Diagnostics, Secaucus, N.J. To help health systems improve patient experience and care outcomes and reduce costs associated with caring for patients undergoing transplant procedures, Quest offers a comprehensive service that includes the following four solutions aimed at making key improvements.
1. Closing gaps in care. Many patients travel long distances to visit centers specializing in specific transplants. After a transplant, all patients undergo careful monitoring throughout their lives. In addition, they must undergo regular testing to prevent infections or graft failure for the initial year or two after transplant. A challenge can be making sure proper follow-up is conducted once patients are discharged and return home, especially for those who live far from the nearest transplant center.
As a national clinical lab with more than 2,200 patient service center locations across the country, Quest can help make sure patients are monitored closely—and are adhering to strict testing protocols—after they have returned home from their transplants, according to Hema Kapoor, MD, senior medical director, infectious diseases and immunology and Global Diagnostics Network, Quest Diagnostics. For example, post-transplant specimen collection materials can be sent to patients’ homes so that they can visit the nearest service center for testing convenience.
“Reaching patients where they are and making it easier for them to be tested prevents gaps in care for an improved engagement of the patient with the care team and to prevent infection, which can lead to transplant failures,” Kapoor says. “Streamlined, high-quality and sustained laboratory test results are essential.”
2. Providing accelerated results. Having quick access to test results is critical for physicians caring for patients throughout their transplant journeys. “We are committed to quick turnaround times,” Kapoor says. Quest aims to deliver testing results for donor testing within 24 hours and post-transplant infectious disease testing within eight to 12 hours from receipt of the patient sample. Express shipping and fast tracking within the lab are available for all transplant customers, which helps expedite specimen transport and testing to support faster turnaround times.
3. Integrating patient results in the EHR. Providing clinicians fast access to post-infectious disease test results right where they need them also is critical for successful patient monitoring. Quest can integrate test results seamlessly into a health system’s EHR. “We can integrate with about 800 EHR systems,” Kapoor says. “Providers receive an alert on their handheld devices or right in the EHR, which allows for better monitoring of their patients in real time, helping providers make critical decisions about their patients who have received transplants and who are in a delicate balance of immunosuppression.”
Clinicians also appreciate the longitudinal reporting Quest provides. Patients are monitored for post-transplant infections for a minimum of one year. Testing starts out weekly, then trails off to biweekly and monthly, for example. Clinicians benefit from knowing about patients’ well-being throughout the days, weeks and months following transplant and can conveniently access that information in the EHR as well, according to Kapoor. This helps guide improved patient care and outcomes.
4. Connecting clinicians with expert help. “Post-transplant infectious disease test results can be complicated, and sometimes the physicians need help,” Kapoor says. Clinicians at health systems partnering with Quest have access to a team of specialized medical experts who are available to guide test selection and results interpretation and support clinicians with patient care decisions. “The experts who are available are trained specifically in infectious diseases and have experience working in hospitals and taking care of patients,” Kapoor says.
Increased access to post-transplant infectious disease surveillance and the accompanying support and solutions Quest offers all are aimed at improving transplant success rates and overall patient outcomes, say Salm and Kapoor.
“That’s really our goal,” Salm says. “To try and improve long-term outcomes and quality of life for patients undergoing transplant procedures.”
For more information, please contact Hema Kapoor, MD, senior medical director, infectious diseases and immunology and Global Diagnostics Network, Quest Diagnostics, at HealthSystems@QuestDiagnostics.com.