Hospital transplants: Best in patient outcomes

The UW Hospital and Clinics Transplant Program is now the second largest in the nation and has the best overall patient outcomes for transplants of any major hospital in the country, according to statistics for 1999.

The data covers kidney, kidney-pancreas, pancreas, liver, lung and heart transplants. During the past year, the program performed an all-time high of 480 transplants, trailing only UCLA.

At the same time, statistics released by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which compiles data for all 270 transplant centers in the country, reveals that UW Hospital had the best overall patient outcomes for organ transplants of any active transplant program.

Transplant surgeons generally agree that a good measure of the success is whether organs transplanted into a patient are functioning one year after transplant. UW Hospital was the only major hospital in the country to have what UNOS termed as “significantly above average” outcomes for both its kidney and liver patients.

Another significant measure used in analyzing outcome data are three-year patient survival rates. The program’s numbers were equally impressive in that category.

“What we are seeing now is the payoff of having a transplant team that has been working together for the past 20 years,” says Hans Sollinger, chair of the Division of Transplant Surgery at UW Hospital. “And of course, credit must be given to the expertise of our individual surgeons.”