Miami Transplant Institute has been found to have "zero deficiencies" and will reopen its program, the Miami Herald reported July 21.
The institute — which is jointly run by Jackson Health System, a public safety-net system based in Miami, and the University of Miami's UHealth — abruptly halted its adult heart transplant program in March to undergo review by the United Network for Organ Sharing, the organization that operates the country's organ transplant system under contract by the federal government.
Investigators visited the transplant center in April after complaints about poor patient outcomes, including infection and death, following heart transplants, as well as a complaint about poor patient selection for the hospital's left ventricular assist device procedure.
"Surveyors spent three days at Jackson Memorial and MTI conducting extensive interviews with our staff, inspecting our clinical areas and combing through medical records and documentation," Jackson Health CEO Carlos Migoya told the Public Health Trust, a governing body of Miami-Dade's public hospital system. "They left our facility with a few dozen additional medical records for further review. I am pleased to inform you that CMS and Florida Agency for Health Care Administration identified zero deficiencies, and we were found to be in full compliance."
The program is still closed and it is unknown when it will open again.
Hospital officials told the Public Health Trust in a June 28 meeting that the institute will soon have a new leader for the transplant program. The program replaced two leaders who were at the center of the complaints in May and appointed Joshua Hare, MD, interim chief of heart failure and Leonardo Mulinari, MD, interim chief of heart transplants.
"At the core of everything we do is our patients and providing them with the best care 100 percent of the time. For transplant patients in particular, we know that for many of them, MTI is quite literally their last chance," Mr. Migoya told the Herald. "That responsibility is one that we never take lightly. And that is why we are working towards building this program up to its full potential."