DCN Center News

2023 was another record-breaking year for the adult organ transplant programs at Intermountain Health, which helped saved the lives of hundreds of patients in Utah and surrounding states needing a gift – often from a stranger.

More than 103,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ transplant, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Nearly 60% of people on transplant waiting lists come from minority communities.

Jose Vasquez almost didn’t answer his cell phone late one night in November but is now thankful that he did. “On the other line was a transplant coordinator from Hackensack Meridian Hackensack University Medical Center telling me the team had a kidney for me and to get to the hospital right away!”

After completing its 100th KPD transplant in a 12-month period, the Penn Transplant Institute now holds the worldwide record for the most KPD transplants in a year.

A kidney transplant at Hartford Hospital recently set a world record, according to the National Kidney Registry. The zero-eplet mismatch kidney came from a donor at Mayo Clinic Rochester. It became the registry’s 8,000th living kidney donor transplant, breaking a world record for the most transplants from a single kidney-paired donation registry.

Intermountain Health’s Transplant Services was named as the top Kidney for Life program in the country for successfully matching living kidney donors to patients who need kidneys. It had the highest percentage of kidney transplants that were well matched over the last year when compared to the other 101 hospitals in the program.

The National Kidney Registry has named Intermountain Health’s Transplant Services as the top Kidney for Life program in the United States for successfully matching kidney donors to patients in need of a life-saving kidney transplant.

Los nuevos datos publicados por el Registro Nacional de Riñones declaran los servicios de trasplantes de Intermountain Health como el programa de Kidney for Life más exitoso en los Estados Unidos por asignar correctamente los donantes de riñones a los pacientes que necesitan un trasplante de riñón para poder vivir. 

Charlotte Markle, 81, is among the world’s longest-surviving kidney transplant recipients. Her transplant at Mayo Clinic was over 57 years ago on March 2, 1966.

How did a kidney donation from one veteran to another originate? Morgan Slaughter saw a sign—literally. While scrolling Facebook looking for a new restaurant to try, the Air Force veteran noticed a post of a sign: an U.S. Air Force veteran needed a kidney.