Penn State Health agrees to suspend kidney transplants for the 2nd time since 2023 and…

The investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania was the focus of the independent, nonpartisan newsroom Spotlight PA’s State College regional bureau. Join our newsletter, Talk of the Town, for updates and offers. STATE COLLEGE: Following inspection by federal regulators, Penn State Health has decided to cease kidney transplant operations for a period of two weeks. The health system’s efforts to revive its abdominal transplant program have been further hampered by the decision. In 2022, it had to halt operations and endure severe sanctions from a national monitoring board.

In order to allow the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which is in charge of overseeing transplants in the United States, to examine the program, the health system decided to cease doing liver transplants in late April.

A Penn State Health representative sent an email to Spotlight PA stating, “We are working to notify patients currently on our kidney transplant list of this decision and will help patients who may wish to transfer to other transplant programs or co-list with another program to do so to do so promptly.” The spokesperson stated that the health institution was working with regulators to “review the current organizational structure of our liver and kidney programs,” but she did not say how many patients were impacted by the decision or what caused it to be inactivated.

The suspension of both programs, which comes less than two years after OPTN labeled Milton S. Hershey Medical Center a “member not in good standing”—the most severe disciplinary action the organization had taken against a hospital in more than 15 years—casts doubt on the effectiveness of the health system’s efforts to rebuild them. In December of last year, OPTN said that the issues had been resolved and reinstated the hospital’s good standing.

According to an internal document obtained by Spotlight PA, staff members were told to inform patients that the inactivation was “not uncommon” when Penn State Health discontinued its liver transplant program last month. Prior to publication, inquiries on the document could not be answered by phone or email from a representative of Penn State Health.

Jason Smith, a heart surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, who previously served on the OPTN oversight committee for transplant programs, told Spotlight PA that while across the country some transplant programs do occasionally inactivate, an individual program repeatedly shutting down “would be a big red flag.”

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

Under its bylaws, OPTN cannot comment on any 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 stop doing the procedures while a “third-party” conducted an “extensive review,” a spokesperson told PennLive at the time.