Highlights | Taking transplant care to the next level
- Effective Oct. 1, 2022, UW Medicine Transplant Institute is a consolidated program under joint leadership.
- The new Institute will enhance coordination efforts across our transplant programs and take our already outstanding services to a new level.
Effective Oct. 1, 2022, UW Medicine launched the Transplant Institute, a consolidated program that will enhance coordination efforts across our transplant programs and take our already outstanding services to a new level. The program will be co-led by interim medical and surgical directors Barbara Jung, MD, and Douglas Wood, MD, respectively.
The program brings together UW Medicine’s organ transplant services: liver, kidney, pancreas and lung. Although the lung transplant program’s leadership structure will remain unchanged, it will coordinate with the institute.
“The Transplant Institute will build on all the work done at UW Medicine to lead in transplantation in the region and beyond and provide us with a structure that is built on partnership so that we can work together even more seamlessly across disciplines. I am very proud of what has been accomplished so far and excited about this next step that will propel us forward,” says Jung.
Operating under a unified Transplant Institute, UW Medicine will be able to enhance clinical operations, coordinate growth strategies to improve clinical coordination and market and brand our services to the community.
“The transplant programs at UW have some of the best outcomes in the United States and provide a critical resource of care for patients in the Pacific Northwest suffering from organ failure. The new UW Medicine Transplant Institute brings together the combined strengths and vision of each of our programs under a common structure that will allow us to continue to grow, improve access and leverage the experience of our teams to advance the care of patients,” says Wood.
Blueprint for a broader vision
“Although we just launched and it’s very early days, I see the Transplant Institute delivering an evolving scope of transplant services for decades to come,” says Tina Block, MHA, RN, assistant administrator of the Kidney, Liver and Lung Transplantation and Living Donor Services.
Block has worked in transplant services for 15 years and says that the Transplant Institute is the only center of its kind in our region — and for her, the opportunity to grow and positively impact more patients is exciting.
“We are launching the Transplant Institute from a very strong and well-established national presence of transplant services, and we are building on something significant,” says Block.
As the leader in organ transplantation in the Northwest, UW Medicine already does over 400 organ transplants per year — and this coordinated program has the potential to help even more people.
The Institute is guided by the Transplant Oversight and Operations Committees, which are responsible for establishing the unified vision, mission and goals, and reviewing and endorsing key strategies for growth and advancement.
“Seeing how impactful transplants can be is just awe-inspiring,” says Block. “This field is open to innovation, and the people in it are committed to making it even better.”
