State OKs Spectrum plan

Adult bone marrow transplants could get under way at Spectrum Health within a few months following the Michigan Department of Community Health’s recent approval of the program.

While Spectrum searches for a doctor to oversee the service for adults, Dr. Aly Mageed will lead the program. Mageed works with pediatric bone marrow transplant patients at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids.

The MDCH recently granted permission for the program. At Spectrum’s urging, the department’s Certificate of Need Commission convened a committee that last year agreed to consider West Michigan separately from the rest of the state for bone marrow transplants.

Until then, adult bone marrow transplant programs were limited to southeastern Michigan.

Spectrum intends to spend $500,000 to remodel eight rooms in Butterworth’s Lettinga Inpatient Cancer Center to accommodate adult bone marrow transplant patients.

“We made a case that we had the expertise and infrastructure in the place for such a needed program and the state agreed,” Spectrum Health System Executive Vice President and Spectrum Health Hospitals President Matt Van Vranken said in a press release.