Peter Schorsch
Tampa Bay’s “Titletown” is more than just for sports.
Breaking yet another record, Tampa General Hospital (TGH) performed more than 611 transplants in 2020.
TGH outperformed last year from the hospital’s previous total of 584 transplants in 2019.
Dr. Kiran Dhanireddy, the executive director of the TGH Advanced Organ Disease & Transplantation Institute and surgical director of liver transplantation, emphasized that it’s more than just the number of successful transplants.
It’s about the 611 lives TGH was able to save.
“TGH has a great responsibility in our community to meet the need and the number of transplants. But our responsibility is also in the quality and outcomes of those transplants,” said Dhanireddy.
Out of 100 transplant programs in the country, TGH ranks third in one-year survival after transplantation.
Currently, the TGH Transplant Institute ranks as the sixth transplant hospital by volume in the country, third in the country for kidney transplants by volume and 10th largest kidney transplant program in the United States.
The high volume of transplants performed at Tampa General is critically important to patient outcomes. Research shows that high-volume transplant centers offer improved safety records and care for patients, along with lower costs.
“Surgeons who operate more often are able to practice and hone their skills, making them better at what they do,” said John Couris, President and CEO of Tampa General Hospital.
Reaching a new transplant record in 2020 is an achievement on its own, but it’s outstanding given the increased demands and pressures on health care systems amid a global pandemic.
“We’ve invested a lot of people, energy and resources into responding to COVID-19, protecting our teams and preventing spread in the community,” said Couris. “But we can’t lose focus on our broader goal of delivering the best, most innovative care to the people we serve. We had to shift our model to treat infectious disease as more of a ‘service line,’ or part of our normal operations.”
In 2018, Tampa General marked another major milestone in its transplant history, reaching 10,000. Only two dozen transplant centers in the United States have achieved that volume.
