Spectrum Health granted state approval to perform heart transplants

By Sharon Hanks

Spectrum Health's hopes of performing the first heart transplant in West Michigan picked up steam recently with a state approval to advance plans for admitting patients needing the complicated surgery. But a number of critical steps still need to be completed before the health care system can conduct surgery on its first heart transplant patient.

Last week the Michigan Department of Community Health approved the hospital's certificate of need (CON) application for performing the sophisticated medical procedure at its Butterworth Campus in Grand Rapids, making it the third and final program in the state allowed to perform heart and lung transplants.

As a condition of the state's consent, Spectrum must perform the first heart transplant within 18 months from the day it is granted certification, Feb. 18, state officials say. Spectrum also must perform a minimum of 12 heart or heart/lung transplants annually in the second 12-months of operation.

"The clock is ticking," Spectrum Health spokesman Bruce Rossman says. "But there are a number of things involved," he adds, before surgery gets under way at the Fred and Lena Meijer Heart Center.

"We have to recruit a nationally renowned heart transplant surgeon to help pull a team together," he says. "There's training involved . . . and of course, you can't do a heart transplant unless there is a heart available."

The business plan is expected to be approved next week by Spectrum's board of directors, he says.

Spectrum health leaders are confident the hospital can sustain a transplant program, noting that 19 patients were referred to hospitals on the Eastside of the state or to those in Chicago. They argue that a local program would allow many patients to remain living in the area while undergoing treatment instead of bearing the expense and trouble associated with a temporary move elsewhere to be near an authorized heart transplant hospital.

"We're very pleased with the action," Rossman says about the state's go-ahead with the plan. "We think it's going to be a real positive thing for not only patients in West Michigan but another step in making West Michigan a real destination for health care."

Spectrum's efforts to perform the somewhat rare surgery began in earnest last August after officials from Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit revealed that it was performing heart transplants under a CON shared by the Henry Ford Hospital system.

Since the state's second CON was long ago filled by the University of Michigan Health System, the only other hospital in the state authorized to conduct heart transplants, the administrative discovery opened up the availability of an unused third CON.

Sources: Bruce Rossman, Spectrum Health media relations manager; the Michigan Department of Community Health's website

Sharon Hanks is innovations and jobs news editor at Rapid Growth Media. Please send story ideas and comments for the column to Sharon at [email protected]. She also is owner of The Write Words in Grand Rapids.