Lung transplant care close to home for Austin
Imagine it is so difficult to breathe you are almost always connected to an oxygen delivery system and your doctor believes your best chance for improved respiratory health is a lung transplant. Then imagine needing to travel several hours to a vast medical complex with a long walk to your appointment just to be evaluated.
That has been the situation for many patients with advanced lung diseases who live in the Austin area, where medical centers do not perform lung transplants. Now, however, some of those obstacles are being replaced by University Health’s Austin Lung Transplant Clinic. It will be at 703 E 15th Street, Suite Y, in space leased from Central Health, Travis County’s public health care system.
“We could have found other Austin clinic space, but locating in another public healthcare facility that shares our values for increasing patient accessibility just made sense,” said Ed Banos, president and CEO of University Health. “Central Health is also aware of the mobility challenges for patients with advanced lung disease and has made sure our clinic is near an accessible parking lot and is easy for patients to reach.”
Central Health is also providing office resources and will make oxygen available when patients need it. They’re ensuring the clinic is clean and stocked with sterile materials so the visiting transplant team can quickly get to work seeing patients when they arrive.
What happens at the Austin clinic
Once a month, a pulmonologist and staff from the lung transplant program at University Health Transplant Institute in San Antonio will travel to the Austin clinic to assess patients who may be candidates for lung transplantation. Most are referred by their pulmonologists. The team will review a patient’s medical history, observe their respiratory function and limitations, talk seriously about the transplantation process and discuss next steps with patients who are transplant candidates.
“Many people with advanced lung disease are medically fragile, and traveling several hours to San Antonio can be physically exhausting and emotionally overwhelming,” explained Dr. Holly Keyt, a pulmonologist and medical director with the Transplant Institute’s lung transplant program. “At our outreach clinic in Austin, we can meet patients where they are, begin building relationships, and introduce them to the transplant process in a more convenient and less stressful setting.”
The in-person evaluation helps Dr. Keyt and her team identify transplant patients before their lung disease progresses to a point where they are too weak to undergo the serious operation. If patients meet the criteria for a transplant they’ll begin more detailed testing. Before surgery, the team assists patients in achieving their best physical health which is critical for successful transplantation.
A lung transplant program with experience and proven results
The Transplant Institute’s lung team has decades of experience and excellent patient outcomes which are tracked by the independent Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. They provided new lungs and new futures to some of the longest-surviving lung transplant patients in the country.
The Transplant Institute program has some of the shortest wait times in the country for lung transplants. They use advanced technologies that help preserve an organ’s quality throughout the transplant process. And their attention to patient health doesn’t end with the surgery.
“Our multidisciplinary team is committed to providing comprehensive, compassionate care at every stage, from the initial evaluation through transplantation, rehabilitation and lifelong follow-up,” Dr. Keyt said. “They will never face this journey alone.”
