Healthbeat

An independent ratings organization called HealthGrades has recognized Ochsner Clinic Foundation’s liver transplant program as among the best in the nation. Out of 111 hospitals performing liver transplant procedures, Ochsner is one of seven nationwide hospitals to receive the Liver Transplant Excellence Award.

Martin J. Drell MD, the Carl Adatto Professor of Community Psychiatry and Head of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, will serve a two-year term as president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, a leading national professional medical association that treats and improves quality of life for children, adolescents and their families. The organization is composed of 7,500 members who promote an understanding of mental illnesses and remove the stigma associated with them, advance preventative efforts and assure proper treatment and access to services.

Ochsner Medical Center was recently named as one of 22 sites in the United States for a landmark clinical trial involving the first transcatheter aortic heart valve that can be implanted without open-heart surgery.  The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Edwards SAPIEN heart valve gives patients who are considered non-operable for conventional open-heart surgery hope for a longer life and relief from symptoms. Ochsner’s Dr. Stephen Ramee said in a press release, “This is an interdisciplinary study in which Ochsner’s Cardiovascular Medicine, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Anesthesia, Pulmonology and Nephrology departments are working collaboratively, using the best techniques from all specialties, to advance the standard of care for our patients.”