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ECMC plans $22M renal center

Thursday, December 10, 2009
Business First of Buffalo - by Tracey Drury

Erie County Medical Center has filed plans with the state for a $22 million renal disease and transplant center.

Aimed at improving outcomes for Western New York residents with chronic kidney disease, the Center of Excellence for Renal Disease and Transplant will be a collaboration with the University at Buffalo School of Medicine & Biomedical Science and the UB School of Pharmacy research programs.
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Funding for the project includes $7.5 million from the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law of New York State (HEAL NY) awarded last month through Phase 11 of the grant program.

The project is an initiative of the Great Lakes Health System of WNY and will bring together the transplant programs from ECMC with Kaleida Health’s programs as part of a recommendation by the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, more commonly known as the Berger Commission.

Consolidating the transplant programs is so far going more smoothly than anticipated when it was announced by Great Lakes Health, said Dr. Merril Dayton, chairman of the UB department of surgery and Kaleida’s chief of surgery.

“It’s very exciting. These were two intensely competitive programs in the recent past,” said Dayton, co-chairman of a Great Lakes Health task force working on the new renal/transplant center with Mark Barabas, ECMC president and COO.

A project summary calls for placing the center on the ECMC campus with three objectives:

• Create an outpatient renal clinical services program and evidence-based care model for management of renal disease;

• Create an inpatient renal services and transplant program on the 10th floor to accommodate 120-150 transplants per year.

• Conduct a translational research initiative by collaborating with the UB medicine and pharmacy research programs.

The hospitals have changed the initial plan that called for consolidating 22 outpatient dialysis stations from Kaleida’s Buffalo General Hospital and 14 stations from ECMC. Instead, ECMC will relocate its unit to a free-standing facility on the campus and request approval for the addition of 10 stations, bringing the total on campus to 24 to accommodate anticipated growth from the consolidated program.

A second free-standing facility will be built near Buffalo General with another 24 stations providing services for chronic dialysis.

Both hospitals will also retain their current facilities for acute dialysis inpatient services with on-site nephrologists and transplant specialists.

“There is no need for chronic care to occur inside the hospital – in fact, it’s much more expensive so one of the cost-cutting moves will be to move chronic outside both institutions,” Dayton said. “One of the mandates of the Berger Commission was that we eliminate expensive duplication. This is one of the purest examples of how this is going to take place.”

Creating a larger, stronger program will help recruit top talent to the new transplant center, especially as the research component of the center begins to build that would enable faculty to present at national meetings.

Next will be the hiring of a consultant; and site visits at other transplant centers that do 150-250 annual procedures – a number the Great Lakes facility expects to reach.

“World-class is the word we’re using in the design process,” said Barabas, who said the design process continues to solicit ideas from members of both existing transplant programs.