Transplant recovery will be available at ThedaCare under new partnership with Froedtert and Medical College of Wisconsin

Benita Mathew, Appleton Post-Crescent
·1 min read
ThedaCare leaders hosted a conversation with school, business and public health stakeholders, as well as representatives from Ascension Wisconsin's Appleton hospital, on Thursday to discuss the rapid rise of COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

NEENAH - Heart and lung transplant patients in northeast Wisconsin will be able to recover closer to home under a new partnership between ThedaCare, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

The health systems announced the partnership last week, allowing people to get pre- and post-transplant care at ThedaCare instead of driving to Milwaukee for follow-up appointments.

The partnership will take effect by the end of the year.

Working with Froedtert and MCW will “empower the people of our community to have access to care at a very advanced specialty level that either Theda does provide or doesn’t expect to provide the future,” ThedaCare president and CEO Imran Andrabi said.

Whether ThedaCare will create additional clinics or if Freodtert and MCW physicians will become based at ThedaCare hasn't been decided.

The health systems will initially focus on coordinating care for transplant recovery and advanced heart failure, said Froedtert CEO and president Cathy Jacobson. Transplants will be performed at Froedtert and MCW facilities and patients will come back home for recovery and follow-up care.

Froedtert and MCW is only one of two lung transplant centers in the state, the other being UW Health.

By providing local pre- and post-transplant care at ThedaCare, transportation costs and time off to go to Milwaukee will decrease, Andrabi said.

Organ transplants are on the rise in the country, with over 41,000 performed in 2021, according to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing.

“All we really need to do is have a patient that needs a lung transplant and have a doctors in Theda that knows that patient needs a lung transplant,” MCW executive vice president Joseph Kerschner said.

Contact Benita Mathew at bmathew@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @benita_mathew.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: ThedaCare to offer advanced care services with Froedtert and MCW partnership