SLC Cardiac Cooperative Transplants 1,000th Heart
Apr 15, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler
(KCPW News) The UTAH Cardiac Transplant Program reached a milestone recently by performing 1,000 successful heart transplants. The unique collaboration between four Salt Lake-region hospitals works more efficiently and provides better care than if each hospital had developed competing heart transplant programs, says Dr. Dale Renlund, the program's director.
"I think it would have been squabbling among competing programs, never getting off the ground, never getting the expertise to take on more and more challenging patients, and getting it done," Relund says. "And so I think the cooperative nature was absolutely essential to the success that we celebrate today."
The cardiac transplant program pools resources from Intermountain Medical Center, University Health Care, Primary Children's Hospital and the Department of Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Health Care Center. Physicians from each facility collaborate on cases under Renlund's supervision. He says it is one of the best programs in the nation. Three weeks ago, 42 year-old Damon Draheim [DRAH-hime], from Salt Lake City, underwent the 1,000th successful heart transplant. It was 23 years and 14 days after the first successful operation. Draheim says he can't thank his physicians, or the family of the heart donor, enough for giving him a second chance at life.
"I am feeling fantastic. The new heart makes you feel so much better. I didn't realize how sick I was," Draheim says. "You know with a heart that wasn't performing. You know you're tired, you're kind of dragging and you don't know why you don't feel good. And then you get a new one and all the blood is just pumping strong, and it just makes you feel so much better."
The cooperative transplant program's one-year survival rate is 93 percent, with a 75-percent 5-year survival rate. Its physicians have authored 7,200 medical papers, and it has attracted $6.8 million in research dollars.
Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW
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