UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare Announce Joint Liver Transplantation Program

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UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare have formed a joint program to enhance liver transplantation services in San Diego by combining resources, collaborating on research and expanding specialized liver care. The alliance is expected to strengthen clinical services for patients with end-stage liver disease while reducing costs. The new arrangement, effective January 7, 2016, expands a similar existing partnership that centralizes bone marrow transplantation services in the region.

UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare executives said the decision to collaborate is a prudent one, given the resources required for liver transplantation and the volume of patients in the community in need of such advanced liver care services.

“Our expert multidisciplinary liver transplant team is known for its ability to handle the most complicated, high-risk cases,” said Patty Maysent, interim CEO, UC San Diego Health. “We now look forward to collaborating with Sharp HealthCare to increase the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the program and, most importantly, provide more end-stage liver disease patients in San Diego with the continuity of care they need.”

"We at Sharp HealthCare are excited about the establishment of the joint liver transplant program with UC San Diego Health,” said Dan Gross, executive vice president of hospital operations at Sharp HealthCare. “This endeavor follows our highly successful joint bone marrow transplant program. Preventing program duplication while meeting community health care needs and driving down health care costs is rewarding.”

Maysent said the patient survival rate in the UC San Diego Health liver transplant program consistently places it amongst the top programs of its kind in California. The program is also one of few to perform liver transplants using organs from living donors.

Gross noted that under the new partnership, UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare will collaborate on the pre-transplant referral and evaluation process to assess a patient’s candidacy and continued eligibility for a donor organ on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) liver transplant wait list. All liver transplant surgeries in this partnership will be performed at UC San Diego Health. Sharp HealthCare will continue its development of advanced liver care at Sharp Coronado hospital.

The arrangement also includes provisions for UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare to collaborate on clinical and academic research programs to further improve the quality and efficiency of liver transplant services. In addition, the program is expanding its reach in Southern California in collaboration with Southern California Liver Centers.