Heart Transplant

If you or someone you love is suffering from advanced heart failure and have been told you need a heart transplant, our team is here to help. The first step in the process is a referral to our transplant program.​

Refer a Patient

A heart transplant is a lifesaving gift for people with advanced heart failure when other treatments have not been successful. Nebraska Medical Center is a leader in advanced heart failure care and is the only hospital in the region to offer left ventricular assist devices, LVADs, as well as heart transplantation. More than 500 people have received a new heart through our Heart Transplant Program, with patient outcomes that are higher than the national average.

Our heart transplant team works with a shared goal: to improve survival and enhance your quality of life.

What to expect

Our heart transplant team includes heart failure cardiologists who will thoroughly evaluate your health and recommend the best treatment options for you, which may include a heart transplant. Our experts have experience evaluating and providing care for high-risk patients that other programs have been turned down.

While heart transplantation is often the only treatment option, some patients may not be candidates for transplant right away. Our heart transplant team utilizes ventricular assist devices, VADs, to help stabilize and support patients until transplant or as a long-term treatment option. Our team has implanted over 500 LVADs and is actively involved in clinical trials evaluating new technology and techniques.

Rarely, a patient may need a transplant that replaces more than one diseased organ during the same surgery. Our transplant teams work closely to perform multiple organ transplants, including heart-kidney, heart-liver and heart-lung.

Why you should choose Nebraska Medicine

Our partnership with the University of Nebraska Medical Center gives us access to breakthrough clinical trials and innovative treatment options for advanced heart failure and transplant.

We are committed to expanding donor pools and making transplants more accessible. Nebraska Medical Center is the only heart transplant center in the region. It is one of the only nationwide using donation after circulatory death, or DCD, as a pathway to organ donation. DCD occurs when a patient dies from cardiac arrest. Through this organ donation pathway, we have increased the number of heart transplants we provide by 20%, reducing wait list time for our patients and their families. With treatment, we can utilize hearts from hepatitis C positive donors. This allows us to save more lives using organs that were previously discarded.

Our care does not end after transplant. Members of the heart transplant team will continue to be a resource for you and your family. They will provide ongoing education, care and support throughout your transplant journey.