The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, presented UCLA with the award at an organ donation conference in Texas.
The HRSA survey is designed to evaluate and recognize the country’s highest performing organ transplant programs with rankings of gold, silver and bronze. UCLA’s was the only heart transplant program in the US to be ranked at the silver level. Among the 744 solid-organ donation programs ranked by the HRSA, only 10 earned silver status, and only one, a liver transplant program in Florida, earned gold.
“This remarkable achievement is a testament to the efforts of our entire UCLA team,” said Dr. Abbas Ardehali, surgical director of UCLA’s heart transplant program. “We are incredibly proud of our program, which has served so many patients with this life-saving procedure.”
The survey was developed as a way to measure performance by assessing transplant rates, post-transplant survival rates, and mortality rates for patients after being placed on the organ donation waiting list.
The HRSA has federal oversight of the nation’s organ donation and transplantation programs.
The UCLA Heart Transplant Program has been operating since 1984. More than 1,900 patients have undergone this life-saving procedure. The development of effective immunosuppressive drugs and the refinement of surgical procedures have led to remarkable improvements in the long-term success of heart transplantation.
