16
July
2015
|
02:30 AM
America/Chicago

Children's Mercy Announces Creation of Brendan Tripp Elam Transplant Center

Philanthropic gift bolsters collaboration between liver, kidney and heart transplant teams

Children's Mercy today announced the creation of the Brendan Tripp Elam Transplant Center, bringing together the collective strengths, knowledge and experience of their liver, kidney and heart transplant teams to provide the best care possible for the region's pediatric transplant patients. The Center's work will be supported through a philanthropic gift from the family of Brendan Tripp Elam, who in December 2012 received a liver transplant at Children's Mercy when he was 10 years old.

"Children's Mercy has been delivering outstanding transplant care to liver and kidney patients for more than 10 years with programs that have been consistently ranked nationally by U.S. News and World Report," said Charles Roberts, MD, Executive Medical Director at Children's Mercy. "With the addition of a heart transplant program, Children's Mercy has shown its ongoing dedication to our children who need transplants. Now is the time to combine all of these individual efforts into a single organized program."

In addition to continuing to provide excellent clinical care for the region's children, forming the Brendan Tripp Elam Transplant Center allows Children's Mercy to collectively focus on four key objectives: (1) contributing to the field of transplantation through research and quality projects; (2) educating the next generation of transplant physicians and surgeons; (3) providing long-term support to our young transplant patients; and (4) continuing to recruit transplant experts that can further our efforts for development of novel therapies and approaches.

Children's Mercy also announced the hiring of Elizabeth Reed, the center's new administrative director. Reed spent the previous 5 years at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, as the Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Transplant, Renal and Trauma Services. There she directed all operational, clinical, and budgetary aspects of each of these programs.

"By forming this tightknit collaboration through the Brendan Tripp Elam Transplant Center, all of our patients will immediately benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of our current teams," Reed said. "Transplant patients have unique needs, and through our comprehensive Center, patients and families will see specialized staff, such as social work, psychologists, child life, surgeons and nurses, who are dedicated to those unique and often lifelong needs."

Families and referring physicians can learn more about the Brendan Tripp Elam Transplant Center at www.childrensmercy.org/transplant.