Brett Guthrie Grills Organ Procurement Organization CEO On NGO's Response To Damning HHS Report

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During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) questioned Network for Hope CEO, Barry Massa about an HHS investigation into the organ procurement organization.

Transcript

00:00The gentlelady yields. The chair recognizes the chairman of the committee, Mr. Guthrie,

00:05for his five minutes of questioning.

00:07Thank you. Thank you all for being here. As I said earlier, this is very important to me and

00:11we got to get this right. We absolutely have to get it right. So, Mr. Massa, obviously the Kentucky

00:16case is important to me as well. It should be important to all of us. You know, the response

00:21that KYDA, I know that you came after that, but the response in the report, quote, is the potential

00:28donor was treated on the Kentucky index case, was treated following standard protocols

00:32for DCD, the proper guardrails were in place, and worked to the expectations, policies,

00:37and procedures for all regulatory agencies. KYDA is satisfied and confident in the donation

00:41process. Do you think that was an adequate response to the issue of that case? It seemed

00:46to be the gist of the response back. Thank you, Congressman Guthrie, for your

00:52question. As I mentioned before, we know that with any successful donation, it occurs with

01:00frequent communication. And I think in this case, especially given that it was very unique,

01:07both the circumstances and the time, that even further communication needed to be done on

01:15this case. And I don't think that occurred on that case. I think the process followed.

01:19When the OPTN asked for KYDA to give them a response, that's the response. When they did

01:27an assessment of what happened, that's their actual response. It's not, this happened during

01:30the case or didn't. The response was everything essentially was fine.

01:35Well, again, I think on this particular case, the process was followed, but there was a lot

01:45of unique things that could have been done better. Okay. So thanks. And so also it said

01:50the records provided to HRSA show potentially, okay, so how does Network of Hope plan to address

01:57the issues identified in the report, particularly the report says records provided to HRSA show

02:02potentially serious and ongoing risk to patients, families, as well as failures by KYDA and the OPT

02:07end to adequately recognize or respond to poor patient care and quality practices?

02:12That's right.

02:13So that was in the report to you. I know that some have said that's the hospital situation,

02:18but as it applies to OPT end or your network, how do you respond, plan to respond to that,

02:24I guess?

02:25As far as the things that we've put in place?

02:28It says, failed to recognize poor patient care and quality practices. So how are you responding

02:34to that? Are you changing your procedures for that or from the HRSA report?

02:37We have changed.

02:38I know you just got it a week ago, but what, I know you've had to have digested it, but

02:41what is your first take on it? I know you haven't had a chance to import it.

02:44We took these, everything that was reported in that report very seriously. And we have,

02:49we are doing our own internal investigation into these cases. As you mentioned, we just got this

02:56report a few days ago, thanks to this committee. But one thing in the report that's making it

03:02difficult is that the donor numbers being used in the report do not match the donor numbers

03:08that we provided. So we're trying to do a crosswalk and we've asked for a crosswalk of that,

03:14those donor numbers, so we could get into the specifics that we have not yet received.

03:19Okay.

03:19But given that.

03:20We'll work with Dr. Lynch to make sure you get that. But given, I mean, the overall confidence

03:26in the system, what is your assessment of what's going on today? The confidence in the system that

03:33we can have?

03:34Well, I think the changes that we have put in place with Network for Hope bring about

03:39more trust into the system. We have devised a checklist for every nurse that is on a DCD case,

03:49and we provide that to them in real time. We did the same thing with every attending physician,

03:54a checklist so that they know what their role is on the DCD donor, as well as what the role of

04:01the hospital is, as well as the role of the OPL. We also developed a 10-minute video that they can

04:09access through a QR code that literally goes from the very beginning of a DCD donor to the very end,

04:18and everything that's expected in between.

04:20We've implemented hard stops so that during any part of the process, we have huddles with everyone

04:28involved in the care and the treatment of that DCD donor, so that if any concerns are raised,

04:34they can raise those concerns at that time or at other times in the process. So I think we've put

04:41together quite a bit of changes since that case, and I think going forward we will never have a case

04:48like that again. And so there just seemed to be some tone of in the report of several cases,

04:55I think about 30 percent of the cases they looked at that had some issues. So not just the Kentucky

04:59Index case, but overall. How are you planning to address it? Like I said, I want everybody

05:03assigned to be an organ donor. And we went the same thing, and as I mentioned,

05:08we are putting in multiple changes in our processes so that these kind of things do not reoccur. And

05:15we're still doing our investigation into those cases. But as I mentioned, we take this seriously,

05:21and we're going to work with HRSA to implement the changes that they want.

05:24Thank you. Thank you. My time's expired now.

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