Nearly 2,000 children ranging from newborns to 17-year-olds received organ transplants in 2015, and nearly 2,000 children are still on the waitlist, according to HHS' information on organ donation and transplantation.
Most children under 18 who need an organ transplant are waiting for a liver, heart or kidney.
The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients uses data collected from other organizations to assess outcomes of centers that perform pediatric liver and heart transplants. SRTR has two rating systems for its outcomes assessment score:
- A three-tier rating system assigns hospitals a "better than expected," "as expected" or "worse than expected" score based on risk-adjusted assessment of first-year success (being alive with a functioning transplant one year after surgery).
- A five-tier outcome assessment system, which is in beta mode, that assigns hospitals a score of one (the worst) to five (the best) based on how many patients stay alive with a functioning transplant one year after surgery.
In the three-tier system, just one hospital earned a "better than expected" for pediatric liver transplants: Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh at UPMC. No hospital earned a "better than expected" for pediatric heart transplants.
In the five-tier system, seven hospitals earned a five score for pediatric liver or heart transplants. Those hospitals are listed below, in the order from SRTR.
Liver
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh at UPMC
Jackson Memorial Hospital University of Miami School of Medicine
Boston Children's Hospital
Children's Medical Center of Dallas
Heart
UF Health Shands Hospital (Gainesville, Fla.)
NY Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center (New York City)
Children's Hospital Colorado (Aurora)
Pediatric kidney transplant outcomes ratings were not available from SRTR.