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Rationing Lives: Organ Transplant Programs
The Los Angeles Times has spent more than a year chronicling lapses in the nation’s organ transplant system. It found problems that resulted in the closure of individual programs in California, as well as failings by those charged with regulating transplantation nationally. It also explored how organs are distributed, including the role geography plays in the wait times for new livers and how a patient’s age may one day prevent him from receiving a kidney.
Below you will find The Times’ stories and statistics about the top and bottom rated transplant programs in the country.
Please send questions or comments to: charles.ornstein@latimes.com, tracy.weber@latimes.com or alan.zarembo@latimes.com.
UC San Diego Medical Center announced Friday that it was voluntarily shutting its heart transplant program — at least temporarily — amid a federal review of transplant centers that fall below performance standards.
Below are transplant centers whose patient survival rates exceeded or fell short of expectations. Not listed are transplant centers that met survival expectations--which factor in the condition of patients and donated organs.
Below are transplant centers whose patient survival rates exceeded or fell short of expectations. Not listed are transplant centers that met survival expectations--which factor in the condition of patients and donated organs.
Below are transplant centers whose patient survival rates exceeded or fell short of expectations. Not listed are transplant centers that met survival expectations--which factor in the condition of patients and donated organs.
Below are transplant centers whose patient survival rates exceeded or fell short of expectations. Not listed are transplant centers that met survival expectations--which factor in the condition of patients and donated organs.
Below are transplant centers whose patient survival rates exceeded or fell short of expectations. Not listed are transplant centers that met survival expectations--which factor in the condition of patients and donated organs.
Kidneys are scarce. Elderly patients may get fewer if rules change.
TIMES INVESTIGATION
U.S. organ network routinely fails to detect problems.
Shifting them from the HMO transplant center to UC hospitals will take far longer than thought.
To qualify for Medicare funding, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires transplant centers to perform a certain number of transplants annually and achieve a specific unadjusted survival rate for patients one year after surgery. Transplant programs at the following hospitals failed to meet one or both of the standards.
University Hospital has among the nation's highest death rates for those receiving new livers, data show. The state plans to investigate.
Charles Grassley asks federal officials why they haven't taken action against substandard centers.
A TIMES INVESTIGATION
Medicare allows 20% of the 236 programs in the U.S. to stay in business despite performing too few operations or having low survival rates.
A withering report says the transplant program was poorly planned, staffed and run. The HMO does not admit or rebut the accusations.
The HMO abruptly announces that it will transfer about 2,000 transplant patients back to UC hospitals. The details are unresolved.
TRANSPLANT INEQUALITY | A Times Special Report
Patients' chances of getting new organs in time to save their lives vary vastly based on where they live. The situation is most dire for people needing livers.
Despite patients' letters, area chief says she was unaware of problems in its transplant program.
'They will do what patients want,' a top regulator says. Those who were on the UC hospitals' waiting list for kidneys may return.
With reports of disarray added to their existing frustration, some don't want the HMO performing their surgeries.
Before the HMO opened its kidney transplant center, it failed to alert regulators to the glut of crucial paperwork coming, officials say.
The HMO would not authorize some patients to receive organs from outside its new program.
By opening its own transplant center in the Bay Area, the HMO harmed recipients' odds of obtaining organs, a Times probe finds.
Kidney transplant patients at St. Vincent Medical Center have died at a higher-than-expected rate over the last several years, raising questions about the quality of care at one of the nation's oldest and busiest transplant programs.
UCI's small transplant center was paralyzed by fear of failure, but its director discouraged dissent and struggled to maintain its image.
A prominent U.S. senator is broadening his investigation into problems at organ transplant centers around the nation, asking why authorities failed to detect problems in the liver program at UCI Medical Center.
THE STATE
UCI Medical Center ventured for years to fix its transplant program, refusing donor organs even as candidates on its waiting list were dying.
The State
U.S. officials decertify the practice at UCI Medical Center. Waiting patients will transfer.
UC Irvine hospital has turned down dozens of livers that were then accepted elsewhere. Federal report also details other problems.
THE STATE
In January 2003, after more than two years on a waiting list for a liver transplant, Saad Al-Harthi was finally considered sick enough to rank near the top.
St. Vincent center in L.A. says a patient, 52nd on liver transplant list, got improper priority and the action was covered up.