LLRFF supporting the Schizophrenia Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital
The Schizophrenia Clinical and Research Program (SCRP) at Massachusetts General Hospital provides comprehensive services for patients with schizophrenia and related disorders.
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The interdisciplinary care of their patients includes collaboration with medicine and an emphasis on prevention of medical disease. This is a critical aim: Patients with schizophrenia or related disorders die, on average, 25 to 30 years earlier than individuals without severe mental illness. They are at significantly increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Hence, there is a critical need to improve the physical health of patients with schizophrenia. This core emphasis on prevention, particularly regarding heart disease, therefore can reduce mortality in their patients.
The LLRFF is sponsoring the work of Dr. Travis Baggett, an internal medicine doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program. As a clinician, he has developed expertise in treating patients with serious psychiatric disorders through his clinic in the Department of Mental Health Lindemann Transitional Shelter. In his role with the SCRP, Dr. Baggett oversees care integration efforts, population-based health management of patients treated by the SCRP, and communication as a critical member of an interdisciplinary care team at SCRP. He plays an important role as a consultant for those SCRP patients who do not have a primary care physician or who do not see them regularly. This is crucial as community psychiatrists are often isolated from colleagues in general medicine and other medical and surgical specialties.
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More information about SCRP can be found here:
https://www.massgeneral.org/schizophrenia
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LLRFF supporting Patient Blood Management
Patient Blood Management (PBM) is a new standard of care that is currently conquering the field of medicine and surgery. It is a model of care to optimize and preserve a patients’ own blood, particularly when the total mass of red blood cells in someone’s circulatory volume is insufficient (anemia) and/or someone undergoes a surgical intervention where high blood loss is likely to occur.
Rather than resorting to blood transfusion, more and more clinicians are now opting for PBM. With potent pharmaceutical agents, advanced technical devices, well planned, meticulous surgery, a better understanding of physiology and last but not least, supported through compelling results from large observational and interventional studies, they can see a bright future for this new treatment standard. Also hospital administrators have discovered, that PBM is a ‘must-have’, not only because of improved quality, safety and patient outcomes including morbidity and mortality and average length of hospital stay, but also because of significant cost savings.
A patient group for whom blood transfusion is not an option clearly had a role in this shift from a blood transfusion focus to managing and preserving a patients’ own blood. Back in 1977, world renown heart surgeon and founder of the Texas Heart Center, Dr. Denton Cooley, published a case series of 542 cardiovascular surgical interventions performed in this patient group. He concluded that these operations can be performed safely without blood transfusion. Since, and again with patients declining the use of donor blood, similar and sometimes even better treatment results have also been achieved in other fields of medicine and surgery. Many of these experiences are well documented in the peer-reviewed literature and served as a proof of principle, and helped paving the way to what is now PBM. One remarkable case is also “Knocking” by Joel Engardi and Tom Shepard, an 2006 award winning film production sponsored by the Laura and Lorenz Reibling Family Foundation.
For more information:
http://www.aabb.org/pbm/Pages/default.aspx
https://ec.europa.eu/health/blood_tissues_organs/publications_de
https://www.nba.gov.au/patient-blood-management-pbm
https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/national-priorities/pbm-collaborative/
https://transfusion.com.au/transfusion_practice/patient_blood_management