Parkinson’s Foundation’s Centers of Excellence Expands Network

Offering specialized teams of health-care professionals, and the latest treatments, three centers have been added to the Centers of Excellence in Parkinson’s Care, increasing the number of facilities globally to 45, the Parkinson’s Foundation announced.

The new centers include the Cleveland Clinic, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The Cleveland Clinic designation includes satellite clinics in Las Vegas, Nevada, Weston, Florida. and Abu Dhabi, Dubai.

“The Center of Excellence designation recognizes the leaders in providing high-quality Parkinson’s care,” John Lehr, president and CEO of the Parkinson’s Foundation, said in a press release.

“The Parkinson’s Foundation will continue to expand our reach across the country to ensure that every person diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease has access to treatments that will improve their quality of life today,” he added.

Of the 45 centers in the Centers of Excellence network, 31 are in the United States. The network serves more than 120,000 Parkinson’s patients annually.

The network’s hospitals and academic centers provide specialized teams of neurologists, movement disorder specialists, physical and occupational therapists, and mental health professionals, who are at the leading edge of medications, therapies and innovations in Parkinson’s disease.

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Each Center of Excellence designation is awarded based on a rigorous application and peer-review process. Nearly half of the centers participate in the “Parkinson’s Outcomes Projects” — the foundation’s largest clinical study of Parkinson’s, which is evaluating a wide range of Parkinson’s factors. These include most effective treatments, therapy benefits, best candidate for each treatment and caregiver impacts.

To provide updates on care and research initiatives, the foundation each year brings network members together for a leadership conference. To ensure requisite standards of care, each center must re-certify every five years.

“This recognition reflects the tireless and dedicated effort of our entire team,” said Hubert Fernandez,  MD, director of the Center for Neurological Restoration at Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic Parkinson’s Center of Excellence. “We will carry this designation with pride, and it will re-energize us to reach even greater heights in providing compassionate care, offering the latest in research and surgical clinical trials, and continuing to reinvent how we treat Parkinson’s disease.”

The network expansion was made possible by the support of Stephen Bittel, chairman and founder of Terranova, a Miami, Florida-based real estate firm.

You can find a list of Parkinson’s Foundation Centers of Excellence here, or by calling (800) 4PD-INFO.