At the Transplant Center at University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, our heart transplant team is famous for its breakthroughs, both in heart transplants and dealing with advanced heart failure. As leaders in innovative research, we bring the science and art of medicine together to provide the best possible care for you and your family. Our 33-year-old program is one of the longest-running heart transplant centers in the world. And our survival rates are well above the national average.

Watch our advanced heart failure and 700th heart transplant videos



Specialists from University of Minnesota Physicians offer the most recent and promising array of treatment options available to people living with advanced heart failure, including heart transplant. Surgeons at our medical center have performed more than 730 heart transplants for people like you since 1978.

Here’s why you can expect the best results at University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview:

• Our experience and innovation makes it possible for most patients to leave University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, less than two weeks after heart transplant.
• 80 percent of heart transplant patients at our center survive five years or more. Our three-, five-, 10-year survival rates are well above the national average.
• The nation's longest-living heart transplant recipient benefited from our innovative care for more than 25 years after surgery.
• Our surgeons performed the first heart transplant in Minnesota in 1978 and the state's first heart/lung transplant in 1986.
• Our program is one of a few in the country that routinely accept older heart donors and older high-risk recipients. This program gives some patients a second chance at  life that they would not otherwise have.
• We are a recognized pioneer in mechanical circulatory suupport bridge to transplant clinical trials. We are one of a handful of sites in the nation approved to train surgeons in transplant state-of-the-art technologies that include some names you might recognize: Thoratec HeartMate II, Ventracor VentrAssist, HeartWare and Centra Mac.
• We are a national leader in implanting ventricular assist devices (VADs) performing about 50 VAD sugeries each year.
• Currently we perform about 20-30 heart transplants annually. This places our program among the top 10 to15 percent in the nation.


 

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