We have prepared the Quick Reference Guides to assist our clients’ case managers in understanding and managing the transplant process. We have attempted to address the basic information many of you have told us would be useful to you.
The information presented in these guides is necessarily of a general nature. Each center in the INTERLINK Health Services Transplant Network has its own unique slant on patient selection, the indications, and the contraindications for each type of organ transplant. Use these guides as the starting point in your exploration of the field of transplantation.
We encourage you to contact directly the centers you are interested in using to discuss any referral with the transplant coordinators or the program director. The staff at any participating center will be more than happy to take the time to review a possible referral with you and the referring physician. This is the best way for you to familiarize yourself with the strengths of each program and their patient selection criteria. It is also the best way to learn about the support services they provide to the patients and their families.
We have included many references we think you will find useful. These are web sites that contain valuable information about organ transplantation and transplant programs in the United States. You will benefit by becoming familiar with these resources. They are continuously updated. They form a handy reference always available to you and your members. We have listed these references in an appendix to the Quick Reference Guides.
If at any time you have any questions about these QRGs or anything else transplant-related, please do not hesitate to call me directly at 1-800-599-9119. If I am not available, another member of the INTERLINK Health Services staff will be happy to assist you.
If there are additional subjects within these topics that you would like us to address, please send me an e-mail at ron.pottsmd@interlinkhealth.com. In addition to suggesting improvements for the topics presented here, I invite you to suggest additional topics for us to include in the next iteration of our Quick Reference Guide series. After all, these are for you, and we want to make them as valuable to you as possible.
All of us at INTERLINK Health Services trust that you will find the Quick Reference Guides helpful. We hope you will turn to them often in support of your patient population.
