Transplants transform lives and reshape futures — just ask anyone of the people pictured below. These lifesaving procedures wouldn’t be possible without a simple yet selfless decision from an organ donor.
While thousands of Americans receive the gift of life each year through organ transplantation, the number of people in need of life-saving organs remains staggeringly high. There are more than 107,000 people currently on the national transplant waiting list, and another person is added every nine minutes.
Hackensack University Medical Center has the second largest transplant program in New Jersey. According to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, Hackensack University Medical Center is ranked second in the nation among 263 transplant centers at providing life-saving deceased donor kidneys faster and ranked third in the nation for the best kidney survival at one year after transplantation.
Hackensack University Medical Center also has short wait list times - which may be credited to the use of new, cutting-edge technology known as the LifePort Kidney Transporter. This hypothermic machine increases the organ’s viability and lifespan, thus decreasing wait times and improving patient outcomes.
Hackensack University Medical Center is also the first center in New Jersey, and the second in the world to use innovative imaging technology before surgery to assess living donor kidneys more precisely and comprehensively than conventional imaging techniques. This same technology is also a tool used during surgery to help guide the removal of donor kidneys. Known as IRIS by Intuitive Surgical Solutions, the advanced imaging software in conjunction with CT scanning creates 3D models of the kidney that assist kidney surgeons with preoperative planning as well as intraoperative navigation during robotic-assisted donor nephrectomy.
Additionally, Hackensack Meridian Children’s Health is a leader in research breakthroughs and exceptional outcomes for children with kidney disease. The pediatric nephrology program at Hackensack Meridian Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center and K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, plays a critical role in understanding and improving outcomes for children with renal disease. Both children’s hospitals serve as clinical coordinating centers for the world’s largest registry for crescentic glomerulonephritis, and an expanded acute kidney injury program at K. Hovnanian includes new interdisciplinary care that provides vital dialysis services.
The comprehensive program also offers genetic testing and counseling. In 2021, Sanzari, which is home to the network’s pediatric transplant program, performed a record number of kidney transplants. Namrata G. Jain, M.D., previously the medical director of the Pediatric Transplant at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia, in 2021 became the new medical director of pediatric kidney transplant.
Hackensack University Medical Center is proud to partner with the National Kidney Registry to decrease the number of people waiting for an organ donation by encouraging people, including our team members, to register as organ, eye and tissue donors.
We hope that you will help spread the word that registering serves as a symbol of hope to patients waiting and by doing so today, you will someday, leave behind the gift of life.
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