questions , assisting them with required paperwork , setting medical appointments , and ensuring that they have the support needed after surgery . In 2019 , UAB navigators began using telehealth technology to train living-donor advocates remotely , and tele-navigation has been greatly expanded – especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began .
INNOVATION
“ One of the goals of the Living Donor Navigator Program is to take the burden of finding a living kidney donor off of the patient ,” says Michael Hanaway , MD , surgical director of the UAB Kidney Transplant Program . “ Many patients with kidney disease or those on dialysis are occupied with treatment and may not have the energy or the comfort level to find a donor . The Living Donor Navigator Program enables us to train a donor advocate who can be the patient ’ s advocate .”
CTI Director Jayme Locke , MD , MPH , says the program helps minimize the amount of time patients spend on dialysis and kidney waiting lists , among the many other benefits . “ The death rate on dialysis is significant – about 5-15 % per year ,” Dr . Locke says . “ Our Living Donor Navigator Program has shown that if you help donors through the medical system and stay connected on that social support piece , you can decrease length of stay , hospital readmissions , and ER visits .”
ONLINE PORTAL FOR REFERRING KIDNEY PATIENTS We are conducting a trial of an online portal that connects the CTI with a test group of roughly two-dozen dialysis units across Alabama , allowing them to more easily refer patients for kidney transplant and transmit patient information without using a fax machine or other cumbersome methods . Referring physicians or dialysis unit staff are able to enter patient demographics and upload medical records into a secure website , from which CTI staff transfer the information directly into our transplant database for easy cataloguing and sharing with UAB stakeholders . It also allows secure communication between UAB and referring doctors and stores those conversations in the patient ’ s record . If the trial is a success , we hope to expand the portal statewide and integrate this functionality into the UAB Medicine Transplant app that launched in fall 2020 . uabmedicine . org / refertransplant 11