The Importance of a Multi-Disciplinary Clinic Model in Hemophilia Care

Robert F. Sidonio Jr, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory University, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, discusses how a multi-disciplinary clinic model improves patient care in hemophilia treatment centers.

Transcript

The buzzword about medical home has been recent discussion. So hemophilia has had a medical home for quite a while. In 1975, the first hemophilia treatment centers were created. And that was pushed by patient advocacy organizations and doctors. What we wanted to do was we wanted to address issues, look at trends, and really try to provide a location in which experts could take care of the patient. So, if you had hemophilia and you came to our center, you would meet a physician, likely there’s a nurse practitioner that’s working in that center, there’s a pharmacist that helps works with us as well. And there may be some specialty pharmacy involved in that as well. We have social workers involved in that. We have an orthopedic surgeon that comes every once in a while. And for women with bleeding disorders, like in Von Willebrand disease and carriers, they often have issues with heavy periods. And so we actually have a gynecologist who works in our clinic. We have this whole room of people that are there and their sole goal is to take care of that patient. So the visit might be a little long when you’re seeing 5 or 6 people, but we want to make sure they get that comprehensive care. We call that multi-disciplinary clinic model. I think that’s important. Not every center provides that, but you can go on different websites like the CDC and look for your local center. If you feel like you’re not getting that care, there likely is a center nearby. We do get a little bit of support from the government through the CDC and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.