What to expect
Our Patient Education section gives you information about the heart transplant process, from being evaluated as a candidate, what to expect during the procedure, and aftercare.
Heart Transplant
If you or a loved one need a heart transplant, it鈥檚 reassuring to know that caring experts are ready to support you through the journey.
If you or a loved one needs a heart transplant, it鈥檚 reassuring to know that caring experts are ready to support you through the journey. The team at the University of Florida Health Shands Transplant Center has more than 30 years of experience in advanced heart failure therapies and heart transplantation techniques. We focus on the unique needs of each patient, providing advanced medical treatments with sensitivity and concern.
BOB体育 Shands Hospital is recognized as a top-performing institute for cardiology and heart surgery by .
The BOB体育 difference
As a patient in our heart transplant program, you benefit from our experience and expertise.
Experience
The cardiovascular surgeons at the BOB体育 Shands Transplant Center performed their first heart transplant in 1985. Since then, the collaborative heart transplant team has performed more than 1,180 heart transplants. Our decades of experience have taught us that every patient鈥檚 journey to heart transplantation is unique. Our experts collaborate to develop personalized plans of care for each individual, assessing each patient鈥檚 medical condition, values and wishes as they cope with the challenges of living with congestive heart failure. The BOB体育 heart transplant team is proud to be the primary referral center in the Southeast for high-risk heart failure patients, including those with congenital heart disease and patients in need of combined organ transplants such as heart, lung, liver and kidney.
Expertise
Our doctors conduct to develop advanced heart transplant surgery techniques that are not offered anywhere else. Our transplant team is also a regional resource to physicians and other medical professionals.
Heart transplant services
- Heart failure: This program focuses on the evaluation and treatment of patients across the entire spectrum of congestive heart failure syndromes at all stages. This includes expert disease management programs for the most common causes of heart failure as well as specialized clinics for rarer diseases that require additional treatment considerations.
- Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Program: Led by Mustafa M. Ahmed, MD, this program uses leading-edge devices to assist the heart when waiting for transplantation or as a permanent solution. .
- Heart transplant: This program combines the expertise of cardiovascular surgeons to perform the surgery and cardiologists to care for transplant recipients and their new hearts long after. Our experts have years of experience and longstanding success using every available tool and strategy to optimize patients鈥� survival and quality of life while the team finds the safest and most efficient possible path to a successful heart transplant, always exploring other treatment alternatives when indicated.
Outcomes
- View our heart transplant program's .
Insurance
BOB体育 is contracted with most transplant networks. Check with your employer or insurer for more information about accessing BOB体育 for transplant services or call our financial representative Sam Cerrato at (352) 594-6951 with any questions. View a list of accepted insurance at BOB体育.
Make a gift
Help support our heart transplant patients by making a gift.
Sign up to be an organ donor
Today, more than 5,000 patients listed at Florida transplant centers await lifesaving organ transplants. You have the power to Donate Life.
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Related conditions and treatments
Clinical Trials: Heart Transplant
BOB体育 research scientists make medicine better every day. They discover new ways to help people by running clinical trials. When you join a clinical trial, you can get advanced medical care. Sometimes years before it's available everywhere. You can also help make medicine better for everyone else. If you'd like to learn more about clinical trials, visit our clinical trials page. Or click one of the links below:
The primary objective of this study is to collect real-world clinical performance data to assess the clinical outcomes of patients receiving heart transplants using donor hearts transported via the SherpaPak CTS System. These results will be鈥�
- Investigator
- Jeffrey P Jacobs
- Status
- Accepting Candidates
- Ages
- N/A - N/A
- Sexes
- All
Community and Patient Programs: Heart Transplant
Our community and patient programs provide great value to patients, families and loved ones. People can find support, educational materials, expert consultants and more. In most instances, these programs are offered free of charge.
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Provides supportive care for select adult and pediatric patients through meditation, relaxation, yoga, tai chi, qigong and massage therapy sessions.
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Children with serious illnesses can enjoy a camp experience in a safe, medically sound environment.
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Offers a wide variety of music-based therapies from in-room performances to collaborative recording sessions.
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Peer companionship for adolescents and young adults living with serious illness.
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BOB体育 Wellness University
Offers classes, programs, groups, activities, resources and health fairs throughout Gainesville, Ocala and The Villages communities.
News and Patient Stories: Heart Transplant
The Gift of Grace: Series of Surgeries Saves Baby Grace From Rare Heart Defect at BOB体育
Expecting a child is a time of joy, anticipation and excitement for most families. Gender reveal celebrations, nursery preparations and dreams of the future鈥�
BOB体育 Shands Arts in Medicine Hosts Ceremony to Honor Patient鈥檚 New Heart
Amid the steady beeping of the heart monitor, Tammy Bernard, BOB体育 Shands Arts in Medicine practitioner, and Jeanne Dickman, a heart transplant patient at鈥�
Latest podcast episodes
Department stores and candy shops are abuzz this first half of February as that most loved and dreaded holiday quickly approaches. Valentine鈥檚 Day is just around the corner, and couples, friends...