In an effort to continue delivering world-class care to patients during the novel coronavirus pandemic, Cleveland Clinic Florida has received approval to begin clinical trials for a variety of new treatments to help COVID-19-positive patients.

One of the most promising treatments is convalescent plasma therapy, which collects antibody rich plasma from donors who have recovered from COVID-19 to use for patients currently struggling with the virus. Cleveland Clinic Florida recently received expanded access to use this therapy for those admitted with moderate to severe COVID-19 disease.
 
One problem facing South Florida is lack of plasma donors. However, since implementing drive-thru testing in mid-March, Cleveland Clinic Florida sites have been gathering information on patients who are interested in plasma donations and currently has a list of 160 willing participants.
 
The convalescent plasma collection will be collected by OneBlood, an independent not-for-profit blood bank serving Florida. Plasma donations from Cleveland Clinic Florida patients could potentially benefit COVID-19 patients across the entire state. Cleveland Clinic Florida continues to refer willing recovered donors who meet criteria to OneBlood daily.
 
“Our objective throughout the COVID-19 outbreak has been to provide the best possible care for patients, which includes developing innovative treatments for the virus,” said Wael Barsoum, M.D., CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic Florida. “We are fortunate to have a team of experts who can help advance treatment options that will benefit patients now and in the future.”
To donate plasma, patients must be symptom free for 14 days and test negative for COVID-19.
 
Hospitalized patients who are interested in receiving a transfusion will have to consent to the trial, and must be a blood match to a donor.


RESTEM, a leading-edge biotechnology company, and Baptist Health South Florida, announced three COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are the first to successfully be treated in the U.S. with umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells under an emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Baptist Health physicians, Guenther Koehne, M.D., Ph.D., and Javier Pérez-Fernández, M.D., safely administered the new treatment to patients through intravenous infusions of RESTEM’s experimental umbilical cord lining-derived stem cells (ULSC).
 
The patients who received this treatment showed reduction of their oxygen requirement from 100% to less than 50% within days of the infusion, accompanied by significant reduction in levels of various key circulating inflammatory markers.
 
“The remarkable ability for these cells to mitigate inflammatory processes holds great promise for COVID-19 patients as well as for people with many other illnesses,” said Guenther Koehne, MD, PhD, deputy director and chief of blood & marrow transplant at Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health. “These patients have improved their lung status much more quickly than patients treated with other experimental therapies,” added Dr. Koehne, who is also professor and chairperson of the Department of Translational Medicine at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (HWCOM) at Florida International University (FIU). Specialists at HWCOM spearheaded this collaborative effort between academia, Baptist Health and RESTEM.
 
“Our preliminary results show that therapy with these cells could be a game-changer in COVID-19,” stated Dr. Javier Perez-Fernandez, pulmonologist and director of critical care at Baptist Hospital of Miami.
 
RESTEM’s cells are grown from umbilical cord tissue by a proprietary process and reduce inflammation, thereby allowing tissue regeneration and healing to occur.
 
The RESTEM ULSC have also been cleared by the FDA for testing their healing properties in the autoimmune conditions of Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis. Patients will also be able to participate in this clinical trial both at the Miami Cancer Institute and at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.


VITAS Healthcare and Atomic Robot, a mobile app development agency in Cincinnati, were both recognized by the Mobile User Experience Awards (MUX 2019) for their co-developed hospice app for clinicians and commitment to the mobile user experience.
 
The VITAS mobile app took top prize for best social impact. Atomic Robot, which developed the app in partnership with VITAS, was named boutique agency of the year. MUX, an organization of digital experts and firms, has sponsored the yearly awards program since 2017 to highlight the best in mobile user experience.
 
Key features of the VITAS hospice app include secure hospice referrals by photo capture of a patient’s face sheet, interactive tools for clinicians to determine hospice eligibility, user personalization by professional role, updated healthcare content, webinar opportunities and a VITAS hospice location finder.
 


Cardiologist Sandra Chaparro, M.D., has been named director of Advanced Heart Failure at Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute.

Dr. Chaparro earned her medical degree at Universidad El Bosque School of Medicine, Bogota, Colombia, and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine. She also completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Missouri, as well as a fellowship in the Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH. She has an extensive background in academia, research and clinical practice.
 
Most recently, Dr. Chaparro was associate professor in the Section of Heart Failure and Transplantation at the University of Miami Hospital and Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she was also director of the Heart Failure and Transplant Fellowship Program, the Heart Failure Clinic and the Mechanical Circulatory Support Program.
 
Dr. Chaparro’s broad research experience includes serving as principle investigator and participating in numerous clinical studies on medications, devices and therapies for heart failure and coronary artery disease. She has given many invited presentations at cardiology symposiums and is on the editorial panels of several medical journals. She also has had numerous articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and is a member of national scientific committees of the American Heart Association, the Heart Failure Society of America, and the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation. Furthermore, she is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. Helping to educate the next generation of physicians, Dr. Chaparro has taken an active role in teaching, advising and mentoring fellows and residents.


The Food & Drug Administration granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Baptist Hospital of Miami Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory at Miami Cancer Institute, to perform a new COVID-19 swab tests in-house. The test was developed at Miami Cancer Institute, which is part of Baptist Health.

Identification of COVID-19 patients is critical in order to either self-isolate at home or admit the patient to a specific area of the hospital. This in-house testing allows Miami Cancer Institute to perform a number of tests twice a day and receive results within 24 hours. The lab is able to perform 40 – 80 tests per day with capacity for more in the near future.
 
“Having this test allows us to expand our in-house testing capability, allowing us to make treatment decisions more quickly and quarantine patients appropriately,” said Edwin Gould, M.D., chief of pathology, Miami Cancer Institute. “We were fortunate to have all the highly sophisticated equipment and expertise needed already in-house– making the switch possible in a short timeframe.”
 
As an added layer of safety, the testing process begins in a leased GermFree trailer, which resides behind the Miami Cancer Institute facility and contains ventilated air space and laminar flow hoods. The remainder of testing is performed in the building’s laboratory. The GermFree trailer, which was used as a pharmacy during Miami Cancer Institute’s construction, includes equipment like microbiology hoods that allow for molecular testing of COVID-19.