To improve the lives of individuals with sickle cell disease, the American Society of Hematology has launched the Sickle Cell Disease Coalition (SCDC). Creation of the coalition with 20 other organizations coincides with the release of “State of Sickle Cell Disease: 2016” – a report detailing the status of access to care for patients with sickle cell disease, gaps in the training and education of health care professionals, areas of interest for research and clinical trials, and the global state of the disease. All four of these areas need improvement, ASH officials said in a statement.
“Not only are individuals with [sickle cell disease] burdened by the pain and disability that comes with a chronic condition, but they also have very few accessible treatment options due to our fragmented health care system,” Dr. Charles S. Abrams, president of ASH, said in the statement. Sickle cell disease affects approximately 100,000 Americans and remains a growing global health concern, according to the statement.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Osaro Erhabor/Creative Commons License
The coalition’s goals include development of evidence-based treatment guidelines to improve quality of care, education of clinicians to increase the number of health care providers available to treat sickle cell disease, investment in research and clinical trials to improve existing treatments and develop new ones, and expansion of early intervention programs to help ease the global burden of sickle cell disease.
For more information regarding the coalition, click here.