In order to better serve patients by aligning the anesthesia team more closely within the health system, Corewell Health East in southeast Michigan will transition anesthesia services to an employed model on Jan. 1, 2024, after a contractual agreement with NorthStar Anesthesia concludes.
“We believe this is the time to move to an employed model for our anesthesiology program,” says Dr. Benjamin Schwartz, president of Corewell Health East. “We now have the skill set and expertise to have our own, world-class anesthesia program. We are doing everything we can to encourage our NorthStar Anesthesia team members to work for Corewell Health.”
Dr. Timothy Lyons, president of Corewell Health’s Beaumont Hospital, Grosse Pointe; and David Warsing, vice president of service line operations, will co-lead the new anesthesia program. Warsing recently was hired to help build the new anesthesia program’s framework.
Lyons comes to Corewell Health from the University of Washington, where he made contributions to the anesthesiology field. Prior to his current role, Lyons, a practicing anesthesiologist, served as Adventist Health St. Helena medical director of anesthesia for 20 years.
“As we take the reins for managing anesthesia services in-house, we are incredibly fortunate to have such talent and experience leading the way,” says Schwartz. “I have no doubt we will be successful and continue our path to make health simple, affordable, equitable and exceptional. Our patients will continue to receive the same great care they have come to expect from our anesthesiology team.”
The change applies to Corewell Health’s Beaumont hospitals in Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, Royal Oak, Taylor, Trenton, Troy, and Wayne. Independent anesthesiologists serving the Farmington Hills campus will continue doing so.
In other health news, Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit is the first and only medical center in Michigan to offer a new gene therapy for the rare condition beta thalassemia, helping patients avoid chronic anemia and a lifetime of blood transfusions.
Zynteglo adds a gene to the patient’s own bone marrow stem cells, which are then infused back into the patient in a single, potentially curative treatment. The process takes several steps over several months, including preparing the patient for the infusion much like a patient who receives a bone marrow stem cell transplant. It is available only at qualified treatment centers, like Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
“This is a potentially life-long solution for our beta thalassemia patients, who otherwise would experience continuous medical treatment throughout their life, as well as possible significant side effects,” says Dr. Süreyya Savaşan, medical director of the transplant and cell therapy Program at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. “This is a game-changer.”
The severe anemia caused by beta-thalassemia often causes patients to rely on blood transfusions every three to four weeks. Children’s Hospital of Michigan manages one of the largest groups of thalassemia patients in the country who are dependent on blood transfusions – and who could potentially be cured by this new treatment.
Children’s Hospital of Michigan became a zynteglo qualified treatment center in May 2023 and is currently in the process of screening patients to begin the months-long treatment process.
Sites are chosen based on their expertise in stem cell transplantation, cell and gene therapy, and beta thalassemia. The transplant and cell therapy team at Children’s Hospital of Michigan has performed hundreds of stem cell transplants, including traditional stem cell transplants from matched donors for children with beta thalassemia. Patients must meet a specific clinical and laboratory profile for zynteglo treatment eligibility.
The availability of this new treatment at Children’s Hospital of Michigan represents an important milestone in a long legacy of thalassemia care. It comes almost exactly 100 years after beta thalassemia was first described in 1925 by Dr. Thomas Benton Cooley, the head of Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s Pediatric Division in the 1920s and 30s.
Beta thalassemia (β-thalassemia) or beta-thal, is a rare genetic disease that researchers believe affects about 1500 people in the United States, most commonly among individuals of Mediterranean, South Asian, and Middle Eastern descent. It’s named for mutations in the gene for β-globin, a primary component of hemoglobin, the protein within red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body.
Even with transfusions, patients can experience symptoms ranging from chronic fatigue, weakness, and pain to potentially deadly complications like liver disease, heart failure, and diabetes. Previously the only curative treatment for beta-thal was a stem cell transplant. This remains an option for some patients, but the patient needs to have a matched donor for a good outcome. Even with a good match, transplant recipients can experience transplant rejection or graft-versus-host disease, a severe complication that can lead to organ damage.
