Miami Transplant Institute Ranked Second Largest In US

MIAMI, FL — The Miami Transplant Institute has been ranked the second largest transplant center in the United States by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network/United Network for Organ Sharing. The facility performed 681 transplants during 2018, second only to UCLA, according to institute officials.

The facility, which was founded in 1970, is operated under an affiliation between Jackson Health System and UHealth – University of Miami Health System.

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“There is no gift more precious than the gift of life,” said Carlos Migoya, president and CEO of Jackson Health System. “Thanks to the partnership between Jackson and UHealth, the Miami Transplant Institute is giving better care to more people than ever before – families who no longer need to spend all their time and energy on sickness, and instead can focus on a brighter future.”

The Miami Transplant Institute has also achieved a number of other noteworthy rankings, according to facility officials:

• The institute's kidney program is now the largest in the country with 433 transplantations, breaking a national record of the largest volume performed by a U.S. transplant program since the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network began keeping records.
• The pediatric intestinal/multivisceral program is ranked number one, with the highest patient survival rates in the nation.
• The abdominal program is ranked number one.
• The pancreas adult program is ranked number two.
• The pediatric program in total was the fourth largest, as was pediatric liver specifically.

“The performance of the Miami Transplant Institute last year is a remarkable achievement, but it is about much more than numbers,” said Dr. Edward Abraham, executive vice president for health affairs and CEO of the University of Miami Health System. “It speaks to the dedication and skill of our surgeons. It speaks to the trust thousands of patients put in us when they choose the Miami Transplant Institute for their life-changing procedure, and it speaks to the way we benefit those patients and their families with the pioneering surgical care we provide each and every day.”

Institute officials said care for adults and children is delivered by a multidisciplinary team of surgeons, physicians, nurses, social workers, dietitians, pharmacists, operating room and intensive care unit staff, led by UHealth transplant surgeon Rodrigo Vianna, director, Miami Transplant Institute and chief of liver, intestinal, and multivisceral transplant.

“Our patients benefit by gaining access to the newest, most advanced, most effective treatments, and procedures,” Vianna explained. “Our kidney, liver and intestine programs, despite high volumes and challenging transplants, performed at or above the risk-adjusted expected outcomes published by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.”

Over and over, experts and advocates have advised patients to seek hospitals and surgeons with high volumes for complex medical care. Teams that regularly perform this kind of work are better prepared to deal with unforeseen complications, according to institute officials.

Someone is added to the national transplant waiting list every 10 minutes and, on average, 20 people die each day while waiting for a transplant, according to the institute, which said that a single organ donor can save eight lives.

“In organ transplantation, the greatest thank-you never belongs to our amazing professionals – despite their tireless efforts – but to the donors and donor families, without whom we would not do a single transplant,” added Luke Preczewski, Jackson’s vice president for transplant. “It is their gift of life that we strive to honor, and we are proud to celebrate the ways in which we tried so hard to live up to that commitment in 2018.”

Photo courtesy Miami Transplant Institute