Dear Members of the Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation,

I hope this newsletter finds you in good health and high spirits. As we gear up for the summer, I am thrilled to announce that SPLIT 2023 meeting registration is now open for our annual meeting in Montreal. The Education Committee has planned an agenda that serves as a testament to the extraordinary dedication and passion within our international community. Register at www.split2023.org. For those who are travelling internationally to Canada, be sure that your passports are updated!

We welcome this meeting as an opportunity to share innovations across our centers. Abstracts have opened- the deadline is June 30, 2023, so please submit!

The SPLIT Council convened at EMMES headquarters in Rockville, Maryland this last month for the Mid-Year Meeting. We continue to refine the strategic directions for SPLIT in its new form and I look forward to providing updates on our continued mission to be the voice of children receiving liver transplantation. Key to our mission is the involvement and investment of our Patient, Family and Engaged Partners (PFEP) group, who I am delighted to announce that Brittany Munn is co-chairing with Jen White. Many thanks to her eloquent statement regarding the importance of pediatric representation in considering the OPTN Modernization Initiative.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SPLIT Advocacy statement

Please consider making a donation to SPLIT this year- our society relies on the generosity of donors like you to fund our mission of improving outcomes in children receiving liver transplantation through research, improving care, training and mentoring, and supporting children and families. These donations go a long way in helping us to fund important initiatives. Your gift, no matter the size, will make a real difference in the lives of children and families affected by transplantation.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

I am so grateful to each of our members for their dedication to our mission and for their tireless efforts to improve the lives of children and families who are waiting for and have received liver transplants. Together, we can continue to make a difference!

Sincerely,

Evelyn Hsu
President, Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation

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Chair: Mary Riordan | mriordan@luriechildrens.org
Co-Chair: Dana Mannino | Dana.Mannino@nemours.org
RDS Co-Chair: Jessica Hollenbeck | jboldon@med.umich.edu

Meeting Times: Bi-monthly 3^rd Tuesday of the month at 3pm ET

Members of the committee are collaborating with PFEP to pilot a parent mentorship program at selected centers. Our goals are to help provide support to newer families undergoing liver transplantation while creating and implementing a quality improvement project that can be shared across all centers to support parent mentorship programs.

Created a TTS Multi-D listserv that allows the Multi-D community to communicate with each other and promote education and networking opportunities.

Chair: Alisha Mavis | alisha.mavis@duke.edu
Co-Chair: Jody Weckwerth | weckwerth.jody@mayo.edu

Meeting Times: Alternating 3^rd Wednesday at 12pm EST and 2^nd Monday at 4pm ET

The Education Committee has been busy planning the SPLIT 2023 meeting, as well as leading our Educational efforts.

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Chair: Katryn Furuya | knfuruya@wisc.edu
Vice-Chair: Pamela Valentino | pamela.valentino@seattlechildrens.org

Meeting Times: 4^th Monday of the month at 4pm ET

As of June 2023, the SPLIT Research Committee has 45 members comprised of physicians, surgeons, trainees and allied health professionals. The 2023 SPLIT RFA was due in March 2023 and the review and ranking of these applications will be completed shortly after the June 9, 2023 review. There were 7 SPLIT manuscripts published in 2022 and on manuscript to date that will be submitted shortly in 2023. Thanks to all the SPLIT Research Committee Members for their hard work!

Chair: Jim Squires | james.squires2@chp.edu
Co-Chair: Julie Economides | jmeconom@texaschildrens.org
Co-Chair: Susan Feist | SFeist@mednet.ucla.edu
Vice-Chair: Anna Banc-Husu | Anna.Banc-Husu@bcm.edu

Meeting Times: 3^rd Wednesday of the month at 4pm ET

The Registry Operations Committee (ROC) continues their work in collaboration with the Emmes Corporation to optimize data quality and expand opportunities for clinical investigation. We are extremely excited to announce that the UNOS-SPLIT data merger is progressing, and we have received our first data set from UNOS! A big thanks to Pam Valentino for all of her efforts. Additionally, we want to highlight center metric reports are now available through the SPLIT Registry website and centers are now able to access their benchmarking data more easily. We continue to work on an invited Registry Manuscript that will highlight the Society’s efforts to improve the outcomes of children receiving liver transplantation. We are always welcoming new members to the committee and anyone who is interested please email Jim Squires (james.squires2@chp.edu).

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Chair: Emily Perito | emily.perito@ucsf.edu
Vice-Chair: Amber Hildreth | anhildreth@health.ucsd.edu

Meeting Times: 2^nd Thursday of the month, 3pm ET

Thanks to everyone on the Advocacy Committee, SPLIT Council, and in the SPLIT community for contributing to our SPLIT statement on the Health Resources and Services Administration’s recently announced OPTN Modernization Initiative. Please click the links below to find the SPLIT statement and the Patient and Family Engaged Partner’s statement.

SPLIT Advocacy statement

Patient and Family Engaged Partner’s Statement

You can find additional statements from parents of children with organ transplants here:

Read Article from Change.org

Read Article from USA TODAY

Chair: Bernadette Vitola | Bernadette.Vitola@medstar.net
Vice-Chair: Voytek Slowik | vslowik@cmh.edu

Meeting Times: 4^th Monday of the month at 3pm ET

SPLIT is a central driving force for understanding the standards of present practice and setting the framework for collaborative, and innovative progress in improving the quality and quantity of life for pediatric liver recipients. We have passionate experts from the pediatric liver transplant community who are dedicated to “moving the needle” in quality patient care. This objective is strategically accomplished by targeting challenging areas of liver transplantation that most impact outcomes such as life-threatening complications, benchmarking best practices, implementing the latest healthcare technologies, and facilitating a platform for quality improvement clinical projects that will provide substantive value to the SPLIT centers and the patients/families they serve. Past collaborative projects have disseminated high-performer practices in minimizing major surgical complications, shortening hospital length of stay, and standardizing quality program practices.

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Co-Chair: Jen White | jewhite@usd261.com
Co-Chair: Brittany Munn | brittanyemunn@gmail.com

The PFEP Committee is currently working with the Multi-D committee to create a strong kickoff for their Mentorship Program; we are currently looking into potentially making it into a research study as well. If there are any SPLIT centers not yet represented in PFEP and they want to nominate an active family to join our committee, we are looking to be connected to grow in diversity and size. Please email Brittany Munn (brittanyemunn@gmail.com) with their information so she can get in touch with them.

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