UVM Health Network companions with Dartmouth Health for kidney transplants after ending surgical procedures in March

The University of Vermont Health Network introduced Wednesday that it’s now working with Dartmouth Health to offer extra seamless entry to kidney transplant surgical procedure, which it shuttered in-house earlier this 12 months.

Patients who require a kidney transplant additionally want vital pre-operative and post-operative care, and the latter can usually final years. After the University of Vermont Medical Center stopped offering transplants on March 1, sufferers in want of the surgical procedure needed to search the total continuum of care outdoors the community, which means they wanted to drive out of state for every pre- and post-surgery session. 

The new collaboration with Dartmouth Health implies that sufferers can now obtain their pre- and post-surgery care in UVM Medical Center’s Burlington clinics, working with each Dartmouth and UVM physicians, in accordance with UVM Health Network spokesperson Annie Mackin. The transplant surgical procedures themselves will happen at Dartmouth’s Lebanon, New Hampshire, hospital.

Before it ended the service, the medical middle carried out roughly 12 kidney transplants every year, mentioned Mackin, a quantity that was not sufficient to cowl the prices. The low number of transplants at UVM Medical Center was famous in a well being care report commissioned by the state from the consulting agency Oliver Wyman launched final 12 months. The report beneficial consolidating kidney transplant surgical procedures in larger quantity areas, as one amongst some ways to make healthcare extra environment friendly and cheaper within the state.

The well being community —- which incorporates three Vermont hospitals and three hospitals in New York — introduced its resolution to finish the native surgical procedures in November 2024. At the identical time, it additionally introduced its intention to switch administration of three dialysis facilities, which the medical middle ran out of hospitals in Newport, Rutland and St. Albans, to these hospitals. However, UVM Medical Center finally continued to handle the dialysis companies out of those three completely different regional hospitals as a result of they have been unable to take over the prices of companies, Mackin mentioned.   

As a part of the identical announcement to reduce companies final November, the hospital proposed closing two different clinics related to Central Vermont Medical Center. Network management cited the bounds set by the Green Mountain Care Board final September for fiscal 12 months 2025 on how a lot income the hospital can gather every year. One of the clinics, Mad River Valley Health Center in Waitsfield, is scheduled to shut Sept. 26, with sufferers being transferred to the hospital’s household medication apply in Waterbury.

The annual regulatory assessment of hospital budgets, lately accomplished for 2026, is meant to maintain healthcare prices in verify for sufferers and insurers. When cuts have been introduced, care board chair Owen Foster resisted taking the blame, explaining that the community may have lower a lot of different prices earlier than chopping well being care companies.