Transcription:
UK HealthCare Hemophilia Treatment Center

Intro: Another informational resource from UK Healthcare. This is UK HealthCast featuring conversations with our physicians and other healthcare providers.

Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to UK HealthCast with the University of Kentucky Healthcare. I'm your host, Caitlin Whyte. Joining us today is Dr. Vlad Radulescu. He is the Director of the Hemophilia Treatment Center and he is here to tell us more about that center. So, doctor, tell me about the Hemophilia Treatment Center. What services do you provide and what type of patients would seek out your care?

Vlad Radulescu, MD (Guest): The Hemophilia Treatment Center provides services for patients with bleeding and clotting disorders. We see children and adults with hemophilia, Von Willebrand disease, rare bleeding disorders. And we also serve a population of children and young adults with clotting disorders.

Host: Now what differentiates UK Healthcare's Hemophilia Treatment Center from others in the state?

Dr. Radulescu: So, the University of Kentucky Hemophilia Treatment Center, it's one of the two federally funded hemophilia treatment centers in Kentucky, but the only one who sees patients across the entire age spectrum from newborn to the old age.

Host: Now with that, being able to see and treat pediatric patients and see them through adulthood, their whole life. Why is this so important to have?

Dr. Radulescu: The medical and the social needs of chronic patients change throughout their life span. We provide one medical home where this transition from one stage of life to the other is as smooth as possible. Patients and their families are familiar with the system. They know the providers, we know them and they gain a certain level of trust and comfort using the same services from one stage of their life to the other.

Host: So, tell us a bit about the comprehensive care you provide and also how the pharmacy's integrated into that care.

Dr. Radulescu: The comprehensive care concept refers to the fact that in order to achieve superior outcomes for a patient with chronic diseases, bleeding disorders, in our case, it's important that the care of the patient is approached in an inclusive manner. So, we don't only address the acute events, treating bleeds in our case, but more importantly, we try to provide preventative care to provide this acute events from occurring. And we do this in different ways. One of it may be the education of the patients, the families, the teachers, the coworkers on how to prevent these bleeds and how to plan for an emergency for a bleeding emergency.

Another way that we approach this comprehensive care is maximizing their access to medical services. And this will include ability of these patients who have insurance coverage, ability to travel to an appointment or us being able to go to their home place and have satellite clinics where we can provide for them. There is another aspect of coordinating the care between different services. For a patient with bleeding disorder, they need some special preparation when they have surgical, dental procedures, endoscopy's and so on. And it's very important to keep an open line of communication with other specialties that are involved in this patient's care.

The pharmacy. The Hemophilia Treatment Center has an independent pharmacy that specifically provides clotting medication for our patient population. This provides several advantages. One is the fact that we are able to provide this medication at the lowest possible cost, both to the patients and to their insurer. Secondly, the pharmacy is small. We have a pharmacist, a technician, and the patients know us. They know how to reach us. And it's a very direct and open line of communication to adjust our services to their needs. And last but not least, the proceeds that this pharmacy generates are only used in the care of patients with bleeding and clotting disorders and allow us to provide certain services, social work, nursing coverage, education, satellite clinics that otherwise will not be possible to be provided without this financial support.

Host: So, I know your clinic is located in Lexington, but you also do outreach in communities across the state. Can you tell us about those locations?

Dr. Radulescu: We serve the Eastern and Central part of Kentucky. Some of our patients live up to three hours away and oftentimes it's difficult for them to travel to Lexington for a medical visit. With us, if satellite clinics in Somerset, in Barbourville in Heartland and in Prestonsburg, where we can see our patients for the routine visits.

Host: Can you also share with us if patients are able to use Telecare to access these services?

Dr. Radulescu: So for the past year or so, we started using more Telemedicine services. We found that they were very, well-received not only by the patients who have to travel a long distance to reach us, but also for the ones who live in town or close by for whom it looks like telemedicine visit was much more convenient.

Host: And that wraps up another episode of UK HealthCast with the University of Kentucky Healthcare. For more information about our Hemophilia Treatment Center, visit UKhealthcare.uk.edu. Please remember to also subscribe, rate and review this podcast and check out all the other University of Kentucky Healthcare podcasts. I'm Caitlin Whyte. Thanks for listening.