I am honored to serve as the President of our society and am excited to present the inaugural edition of our quarterly SPLIT Newsletter. Our members have been hard at work!

In this newsletter, you will find updates on the latest developments in our society and information on how to get involved in SPLIT on a committee level. We are particularly excited with the development of the new Multi-Disciplinary Committee under the leadership of Mary Riordan (Lurie Children’s) and Dana Mannino (A.I Dupont Nemours). You will also find information on our upcoming events, meetings, and ways to get involved.

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

Chair:
Mary Riordan
| mriordan@luriechildrens.org

Co-Chairs:
Dana Mannino
| Dana.Mannino@nemours.org
Jessica Hollenbeck | jboldon@med.umich.edu

Meeting Times: bi-monthly 3rd Tuesday of the month at 3pm EST


The Multi-Disciplinary Committee (formerly the Coordinators Committee/Allied Health Professionals Committee) will kick off our bi-monthly meetings in January 2023. In the upcoming year, we plan on partnering further with the SPLIT Advocacy Committee and Patient, Family and Engaged Partners (PFEP) Committee to host webinar series focusing on barriers in pediatric transplant related to social determinants of health. We look forward to exploring important topics related to the health, well-being and overall quality of life of our transplant community.


Physician Chair:
Alisha Mavis
| alisha.mavis@duke.edu

Multi-D Chair:
Jody Weckwerth
| weckwerth.jody@mayo.edu

Meeting Times: alternating 3rd Wednesday at 12pm EST and 2nd Monday at 4pm EST


The Education Committee is working hard to put together another enlightening and thought-provoking annual meeting agenda. We are also getting ready to launch a workforce survey project. We would love for more people to join us in these endeavors. Meeting times will be adjusted to alternating the 3rd Wednesday at 12pm EST and 2nd Monday at 4pm EST.


Chair:
Katryn Furuya
| knfuruya@wisc.edu

Vice-Chair:
Pamela Valentino
| pamela.valentino@seattlechildrens.org

Meeting Times: 4th Monday of the month at 4pm EST


There are now 28 members listed for the Research Committee! The SPLIT RFA 2023 announcement went out on October 18, 2022, and the due date for applications is March 13, 2023.


Physician Chair:
Jim Squires
| james.squires2@chp.edu

Physician Vice-Chair:
Anna Banc-Husu
| Anna.Banc-Husu@bcm.edu

Multi-D Co-Chair:
Susan Feist
| SFeist@mednet.ucla.edu

Multi-D Co-Chair:
Julie Economides
| jmeconom@texaschildrens.org

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


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 have welcomed new leadership of the committee with Anna Banc-Husu MD (Physician Vice-Chair), Julie Economides RN (Multi-D Co-Chair), and Susan Feist RN, BSN, CCRC (Multi-D Co-Chair) being elected to their positions. We are extremely excited to announce that through efforts led by Jeff Mitchell at Emmes, 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 with UNOS to enable data transfer that will improve the data entry burden and look forward to beginning 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 (contact information above).


Chair:
Emily Perito
| emily.perito@ucsf.edu

Vice-Chair:
Amber Hildreth
| anhildreth@health.ucsd.edu

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


The Advocacy Committee has been working on several fronts on our mission to eliminate preventable morbidity and mortality through a data-driven approach to actionable patient issues surrounding equitable transplant care access, evaluation, organ allocation policy.

Recent key efforts include:

  • Advocating for attention to pediatric-specific issues in UNOS policy and guidance proposals – like this Ethics Committee guidance on transparency in transplant program messaging to patients. In response to SPLIT comments, the White Paper was amended to highlight access to split liver transplant as a pediatric-specific example of information that patients and families should have access to.

    Click Here to Read Guidance

  • Hosting a webinar on the challenges of and opportunities for addressing social determinants of health in pediatric liver transplant. Watch the webinar here:

  • Campaigning in support of the federal Living Donor Protection Act.

    Click Here to learn More

Stay tuned for our upcoming webinar, in collaboration with the Multi-Disciplinary Committee, on the impact of social determinants of health on access to mental health care.

And join us at our monthly meeting to develop SPLIT’s response to Winter 2023 UNOS policy proposals – we need your voice!

Please contact Emily Perito or Amber Hildreth for details on how to join!


Chair:
Bernadette Vitola
| Bernadette.Vitola@medstar.net

Vice-Chair:
Voytek Slowik
| vslowik@cmh.edu

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


The SPLIT QI Committee is comprised of multidisciplinary SPLIT membership who seek to improve the care of pediatric liver transplant patients. Chaired by Bernadette Vitola MD (with Voytek Slowik MD as vice-chair), they meet monthly to review current and future projects. Currently, the committee is working on quality improvement projects including a comparison of practice habits during transplant with length of hospital stay as well as a project on laboratory and radiology practice habits after transplant. The committee has also become an ABMC Portfolio Sponsor for Quality Improvement Projects and MOC Certification. The Committee is working with ABMS to see how routine QICC activities can help earn MOC in the next several months.


Chair:
Jennifer White
| split-pfep@tts.org


Going into the new year we are excited to collaborate and support other SPLIT committees. We are currently working with the Advocacy and Multi-D committees to co-host webinars highlighting the social determinants of health and other barriers pertaining to pediatric liver transplantation.



Social

Contact

Staff Directory
+1-514-874-1717 x210
katie.tait@tts.org

Address

Society of Pediatric Liver Transplantation
c/o The Transplantation Society
740 Notre-Dame Ouest
Suite 1245
Montréal, QC, H3C 3X6
Canada