Penn State Health agrees to suspend kidney transplants for second time since 2022

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania — Penn State Health has agreed to stop performing kidney transplants for two weeks following review by federal officials. The decision is another blow to the health system’s attempts to rebuild its abdominal transplant program after it suspended operations in 2022 and faced severe disciplinary action from a national regulator.

Article by Charlotte Keith of Spotlight PA and Wyatt Massey of Spotlight PA State College

The health system agreed to stop performing liver transplants at the end of April while the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which oversees transplants in the U.S., reviews the program.

“We are working to inform patients currently on our kidney transplant list of this decision and will assist patients who may wish to transfer to or associate with other transplant programs to do so promptly,” a spokesperson said from Penn State Health in an email to Spotlight PA.

The spokesman did not provide information on the number of patients affected by the decision or what the reason for the inactivation was. However, he said the health system is working with regulators to “review the current organizational structure of our liver and kidney programs.”

The suspension of both programs casts doubt on the success of the health system’s efforts to rebuild them and comes less than two years after OPTN declared Milton S. Hershey Medical Center a “member in good standing” – the group’s most serious disciplinary action initiated against a hospital in more than 15 years.

OPTN restored the hospital’s good standing last December and said it had resolved the problems.

When Penn State Health shut down its liver transplant program last month, employees were instructed to tell patients that inactivation was “not uncommon,” according to an internal document obtained by Spotlight PA.

A spokesperson for Penn State Health could not be reached by phone or email to answer questions about the document before publication.

Jason Smith, a cardiac surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, who previously served on the OPTN transplant program oversight committee, told Spotlight PA that while some transplant programs are occasionally inactivated across the country, a single program is repeatedly shut down big red flag.”

“It is my opinion that the repeated suspension of transplant activity indicates a deeper problem with the institutional commitment to transplant or that there is a leadership problem that is affecting the successful maintenance of a transplant program,” Smith posed in an email to Spotlight PA clearly his view.

Under its charter, OPTN cannot comment on a potential or ongoing review of a member organization, a spokesperson previously told Spotlight PA.

This is not the first time Penn State Health has suspended liver and kidney transplants. In April 2022, the health system agreed to halt the procedures while a “third party” conducted a “comprehensive review,” a spokesperson told PennLive at the time.

National data shows the number of kidney transplants performed at Hershey Medical Center fell significantly after the facility resumed procedures in 2023. While the hospital rebuilt its transplant waiting list this year, it only performed one kidney transplant. So far in 2024, five patients have received kidneys. Before the 2022 suspension, the hospital typically performed at least two dozen per year.

In May 2022, a state health department inspection found a number of problems with the medical center’s transplant programs, PennLive reported over the summer. Inspectors found that staff failed to analyze post-transplant problems for trends, failed to notify the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that key employees, including surgeons, had changed, and some patients did not Those who were properly informed about possible surgical complications or the loss of some organs were considered high risk.

Later that year, OPTN declared the hospital a “member in good standing,” citing reports of surgical complications, concerns about the kidney and liver transplant programs’ compliance with national requirements, and “a culture of retaliation in reporting potential problems.”

It was the first time since 2006 that OPTN rated a hospital as “not in good condition.”

The designation is intended to “call public attention” that a hospital has committed a “serious violation” of the organization’s policies or bylaws or demonstrated “a serious lack of patient safety or quality of care,” the organization’s board said.

Penn State Health leaders vowed to overhaul kidney and liver transplants and hired three new surgeons that officials called “world-class” in a March 2023 news release.

“We voluntarily inactivated our program in April 2022 to improve it, and since then we have built the abdominal transplant program that the people of central Pennsylvania deserve,” Deborah Addo, the health system’s chief operating officer, said at the time.

The health system’s heart, stem cell and bone marrow transplant programs are not affected by the recent changes.

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