TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa General Hospital is launching a new program to help more African Americans get organ transplants.
“African Americans unfortunately have about a three times higher rate of developing end-stage renal disease than other patients, particularly white patients,” said Dr. Anthony Watkins, Surgical Director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at TGH.
Studies have shown over the past several decades that there’s decreased access to transplants for African American patients.
“There’s decreased referrals to transplant centers in a timely fashion and when African Americans are evaluated,” said Watkins.
They’re often not considered transplant candidates due to various factors that are contributed to the social determinants of health, including health literacy, social support, and ability to get back and forth from the hospital.
Watkins is on a mission to change that.
“The purpose of the program is to mitigate some of these barriers that these patients face,” he said.
Watkins is now in the process of launching the African American Transplant Program as TGH celebrates 50 years of transplants.
“We’re going to create a team of practitioners who have shared experiences with these patients so we can mitigate some of the mistrust that these patients have,” said Watkins.
“So when you have a healthcare system that is not that diverse, and we bring some implicit biases to the table, oftentimes that can bleed into the evaluation process. So you can have a provider bias issue that’s coming into play but you can also have an issue with the potential candidate having some mistrust with the healthcare system because of various historical events,” he added.
With this team of people, he’ll be working to get more African American patients on the transplant waiting list.
“At the current state, the percentage of patients who are seen and actually make it to the waiting list is far lower than it should be. So this program is specifically designed to mitigate that barrier,” said Watkins.
TGH received a grant to help them launch this new program. It’ll be done under a research setting to give them extra funding for patient resources.
It also provides additional means to study the impact and outcome of this program to make a difference nationwide.
“And then hopefully be able to publish data to present to the broader transplant community in hopes that we can provide the blueprint for what other centers should do to mitigate these issues,” said Watkins.
The intention is to create more equitable access and save lives in Tampa Bay and beyond.
“Our goal in medicine is to provide high-quality care for all patients, right? And unfortunately, in our current state, that’s just not happening for a variety of reasons. So this is one of the strategies to kind of help mitigate that issue,” said Watkins.
The program is expected to officially launch later this year.
