Announcement from Charles George VA Medical Center:
May 21, 2020 — The Western North Carolina VA Health Care System is continuing its reputation for innovation by coordinating with the Mayo Clinic in a national program to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health experts believe that people who recover from COVID-19 can do so, in part, because they have antibodies which can fight off the virus. Antibodies exist in plasma and plasma can be pulled from the blood.
According to Amber Goetschius, Research Program Specialist, the program allows plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to be donated, screened and used for treatment in current patients who are sick with the virus.
“The recovered patients’ plasma, it is believed, contains antibodies which may be effective in fighting off the virus,” she said.
The program was successfully approved on May 5, after the Health Care System’s Research Office reviewed options for how the treatment could be provided at Charles George VA Medical Center.
Dr. Khalid Bashir, Principal Investigator, has been in communication with Mayo Clinic personnel; protocol and groundwork were coordinated; and the local team has created processes to deliver the treatment to Veterans.
Bashir said the Health Care System’s involvement with the program to this point has been to acquire convalescent plasma for sick patients needing treatment. He also said that anyone wanting to be considered as a donor should contact a local blood bank.
Dr. Brian Peek, Associate Chief of Staff for Research & Development here, said inclusion in the program makes our Health Care System stand out in the fight against COVID-19.
“This is truly a unique time,” Peek said. “The Western North Carolina VA Health Care System is partnering outside of the Veterans Health Administration to work with national experts to combat this virus in our hometown.”
Goetschius agreed and said just getting approved for the treatment was no simple feat.
“New treatments such as this are only available through very specific pathways called expanded access programs,” She said. That’s in order to ensure the safety of the patients and to ensure that the treatments are only used in the most appropriate patients. “Our facility leadership worked with physician specialists and research to develop policies and agreements with Mayo Clinic – one of the country’s leading research institutions.”
The Health Care System was able to demonstrate the clinical expertise and the infrastructure to appropriately deliver the cutting-edge care to patients, she added.
“Once the many documents were in place and signed, our doctors were able to consider this product – which would not otherwise have been available – for treatment of our patients,” Goetschius said. “Within one day of having this option, a patient was identified and had received the treatment.”
But, Dr. Timothy Burns, Research Pharmacist, said the situation had its own unique set of challenges.
“This type of treatment carries the difficulty of how to obtain informed consent because patients are usually unable to provide consent when they need the treatment,” Burns said. “If another person comes in to provide consent, they would then be exposed to a higher risk environment.”
In this instance, Burns arranged consent to be provided by a family member at Charles George VA Medical Center’s drive-through pharmacy – an innovative and patient-centered approach in its own right.
Dr. Andrew Buck, Chief of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and an Institutional Review Board member, initially brought the idea of convalescent plasma to the Research Program.
“Wanting to make sure that we could offer this to our patients when the time came,” Peek said, “(Buck) started laying the groundwork for our Veterans to have access.”
Peek said that without the research program, Health Care System Veterans would have to be evaluated and referred to another medical center for other treatment options such as this.
“In addition to increasing treatment availability, we stand out by having our clinicians involved in the use of new therapies and interacting with experts around the country in the early stages of treatment advances,” Peek said. “This brings the best care to our VA population.”
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