Concept note, October 13, 2023

Introduction

Sankalp India Foundation (sankalpindia.net), with the support of DKMS Group-Germany (professional.dkms.org) and Cure2Children-Italy (cure2children.org), has developed a blood and marrow transplant program serving mostly lower-income families and their children with hemoglobinopathies and other non-malignant disorders. These services are performing approximately 150 BMTs yearly in two centers, a 12-bedded unit at Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital in Bangalore-India and a 4-bedded unit at CIMS Hospital in Ahmedabad-India. This not-for-profit project focuses on information technology to promote continuing quality improvement, frugal innovation and, ultimately, to maximize value delivery and sustainability, see scientific production at PubMed.

For physicians and nurses

• Two-week observership

This training module will not require an Indian license and will not entail clinical responsibilities.

Participants will be expected to review the online videos available from the DKMS website on the core competencies below.

1	General introduction to allogeneic BMT and start up strategy
2	Patient info organization, adverse events/error reporting and quality assurance management
3	Donor/recipient evaluation and management, informed consent procedure
4	Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing and ABO incompatibility management
5	Marrow harvest procedure and marrow infusion
6	Central line management and infection control
7	Treatment plan, administration of preparative regimen, mucositis, vomiting and pain
8	Management of neutropenic fever and fungal disease
9	Blood product administration, thrombocytopenia and bleeding including hemorrhagic cystitis
10	Engraftment syndrome, sinusoidal obstruction syndrome and thrombotic microangiopathy
11	Diagnosis and management of CMV activation and pulmonary complications
12	Diagnosis and management of acute and chronic graft versus host disease
13	Diagnosis and management of graft failure, evaluation of BMT outcomes and late effects

As a first step a set of polls will be administered to better understand the familiarity of trainees with the above core competencies. Subsequent training will be primarily interactive and will take into consideration the baseline competency and role of participants.

Given the high volume of transplantation performed, trainees will be exposed to all major phases during their 2-week stay, from information technology support, to patient selection and preparation, counseling, conditioning regime selection and administration, stem cell collection from bone marrow or peripheral blood, to post-BMT recovery and follow up.

• Six-month fellowship

For this, a medical or nursing license in India will be required since it will entail hands-on clinical responsibility as well as a Indian market-rate salary.

For transplant coordinators and quality assurance managers

• Two-week course focused on information technology addressing all major aspects of transplant coordination quality management primarily aiming and compliance with FACT/JACIE standards, development of standard operating procedures, clinical practice guidelines, knowledge management, teamwork, new personnel orientation and training documentation, incident and error reporting, stock ad consumables management, internal auditing, etc…

 

For further information please contact:

• Dr. Lawrence Faulkner, lawrence.faulkner@cure2children.org
• Mr. Rakesh Dhanya, rakesh@sankalpindia.net