Mayo Clinic/Nemours Children's Clinic/Wolfson Children's Hospital Blood and Marrow Transplant Program earns national accreditation

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Sept. 14, 2004 — The Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy has awarded a three-year accreditation to the Blood and Marrow Transplantation Program of Mayo Clinic, Nemours Children's Clinic and Wolfson Children's Hospital.

The foundation awarded the accreditation after thorough site visits at all collection, transplantation and laboratory facilities at Mayo Clinic, Nemours Children's Clinic and Wolfson Children's Hospital.

"This is a major step for the transplant program," says Program Director, pediatric hematologist/oncologist Michael Joyce, M.D., Ph.D., from Nemours Children's Clinic. "The physicians and Hematology/Oncology staff at Mayo, Nemours and Wolfson all worked extremely hard to achieve this accreditation in a short period of time."

The program was created just over two years ago to allow for greater collaboration in physician and staff expertise, research and clinical protocols. Many of the patient referrals to the blood and marrow transplant program come from physicians at Nemours Children's Clinics in Jacksonville, Orlando and Pensacola as well as from across the region. During the past two years the combined program has transplanted over 100 patients with a variety of illnesses including childhood leukemia, Ewings Sarcoma, neuroblastoma, multiple myeloma, lymphoma and amyloidosis. Stem cell sources include the patient, HLA matched family members or unrelated donors of marrow or umbilical cord blood stem cells.

The program shares a single cryopreservation laboratory (where stem cells are frozen and processed) located at Mayo's St. Luke's Hospital. St. Luke's maintains the program's adult blood and marrow transplant unit, and Wolfson Children's Hospital maintains its pediatric blood and marrow transplant unit. The program shares information systems, network and other clinical and administrative staff.

Mayo Clinic hematologist Lawrence Solberg, M.D., Ph.D., was the merged program's first director, serving in that capacity through the certification process. "When the programs merged two years ago, one of our goals was full accreditation by FACT," Solberg says. "More and more, insurance companies are only paying for transplants through programs accredited by FACT. So this is welcome news for patients who might otherwise have to leave home or travel a greater distance for a transplant."

The facilities inspected were the clinical, bone marrow and peripheral blood progenitor cell and cell processing laboratory facilities.

"The success of the program, both academically and clinically, is attributable to a group of outstanding physicians and staff who wanted to do what was in the best interests of their patients and the community at-large," says Michael Haight, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Wolfson Children's Hospital.

About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a multispecialty medical clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. The staff includes 328 physicians working in more than 40 specialties to provide diagnosis, treatment and surgery. Patients who need hospitalization are admitted to nearby St. Luke's Hospital, a 289-bed Mayo facility. Mayo Clinics also are located in Rochester, Minn., and Scottsdale, Ariz. Visit www.mayoclinic.org/news for all the news from Mayo Clinic.

About Nemours Children's Clinic
Nemours provides institutions and services to improve the health of children. Employing 445 subspecialty physicians and surgeons, Nemours cared for more than 200,000 children during more than three quarter of a million in-patient and outpatient visits in 2003, making Nemours one of the nation's largest pediatric subspecialty group practices. Nemours operates in Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, while the most visited healthcare Web site online for children and teens, www.kidshealth.org is a project of Nemours. Additional information about Nemours can be found at www.nemours.org.

About Wolfson Children's Hospital and Baptist Health
Wolfson Children's Hospital, a part of Baptist Health, is one of the nation's top children's hospitals. Founded in 1955, Wolfson is a 180-bed regional referral hospital serving children and is the only children's hospital in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. Baptist Health is a faith-based, mission-driven system comprised of Baptist Medical Center, Baptist Medical Center Beaches, Baptist Medical Center Nassau and Wolfson Children's Hospital. Baptist Health also includes cardiology and cardiovascular surgery services, a comprehensive cancer center, orthopaedic institute, women's resource center, a full range of psychology and psychiatry services, outpatient facilities and a network of primary care physicians' offices throughout Northeast Florida. Additional information about Baptist and Wolfson may be found at www.e-baptisthealth.com.

Media Contacts
Erik Kaldor
(904) 953-2299
kaldor.erik@mayo.edu

Odette Struys
(904) 232-4186
ostruys@nemours.org

Cindy Hamilton
(904) 202-4907
Cindy.Hamilton@bmcjax.com

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