Heart Transplant Program

The U.T.A.H. (Utah Transplantation Affiliated Hospitals) Cardiac Transplant Program at Intermountain Medical Center, originally located at LDS Hospital, is one of the most successful cooperative heart transplant programs in the nation.

The program’s unique model utilizes skill, expertise, and resources from four local hospitals:

• Intermountain Medical Center
• Primary Children’s Medical Center
• University Health Care
• The George E. Wahlen Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center

This cooperation, along with teamwork among each hospital’s departments, enhances clinical expertise and helps to contain costs by eliminating replication. The program serves as a model for other transplant programs through its efficiency and clinical outcomes, having achieved some of the highest survival rates in the nation.

“Cooperation has allowed us to function more effectively, to allocate donor hearts more effectively, and to select the most appropriate recipients,” says A.G. Kfoury, MD, Director of the U.T.A.H. Cardiac Transplant Program.

Since transplant medicine began in Utah, our team has contributed to the standard of care through extensive participation in immunosuppression clinical trials. Further collaboration with pathologists has led the program to be an international leader in understanding and classifying cardiac allograft rejection.

Accomplishments

• One of the first Medicare-approved cardiac transplant centers
• One of few programs to have performed over 1,000 cardiac transplant procedures
• Over 200 peer-reviewed publications
• Nearly $7 million in research grants
• Over 57 heart failure/heart transplant trainees

Clinics affiliated with the Heart Transplant Program

• Heart & Lung Surgical Associates
• Heart Failure Specialty Clinic