Advanced heart transplant surgery in Wisconsin
Find a transplant doctorGetting a heart transplant is a life-changing journey, and we're here to support you and your family throughout the process.
Aurora Health Care offers advanced heart transplant surgery for patients who need heart transplants in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin. Our team provides compassionate care to ensure the best possible outcome. As your Wisconsin heart transplant center, we’re here to guide you through every step of your heart transplant journey.
We completed the Midwest’s first heart transplant shortly after the world’s first heart transplant procedure was performed. From surgery to recovery, we continue providing personalized care and expertise to help keep people healthier for years after their transplant.
What is a heart transplant?
If medications or treatments no longer help your heart condition, heart transplant surgery may be an option. A heart transplant is a procedure where a surgeon replaces a diseased heart with a healthy donor heart. A new heart can help you live longer and with a better quality of life.
Conditions treated with heart transplant surgery
A heart transplant may be recommended if you have:
- Congestive heart failure
- Severe coronary artery disease with poor heart function
- Certain congenital heart defects
- Cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease)
Preparing for a heart transplant
Your care team will help you understand your options and determine if you’re a suitable candidate for heart transplant surgery.
If a decision is made to move forward with a heart transplant, we’ll register you with the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) waitlist. This national list matches transplant recipients with available organs based on health status, location and other guidelines.
While you’re waiting for a transplant, you’ll meet regularly with your transplant team so we can keep you as healthy as possible for the procedure. We understand how difficult it can be to wait for a match – it could be a few days or a few years. That’s why we provide both emotional and medical support.
We’ll also help you prepare financially by discussing your financial options and obtaining precertification from your health plan.
How does heart transplant surgery work?
We'll call you once a suitable donor heart becomes available. You’ll need to arrive at the hospital within a few hours. Once you arrive, we’ll do some tests to make sure your body is ready for transplantation.
Heart replacement surgery can take four to six hours. You’ll receive general anesthesia that will put you to sleep so you won’t feel any pain. We’ll also monitor your heart function, insert a catheter to empty your bladder and connect you to a breathing machine.
Your surgeon will make an incision along the breastbone. You’ll be connected to a heart-lung bypass machine, which allows your surgeon to stop your heart from beating and keeps your blood circulating while the heart is stopped.
The surgeon will remove your heart and replace it with the donor’s heart. Your surgeon may use electrical shock and possibly medications to restart your new heart. Then we’ll close your incision. We may insert temporary drainage tubes into your chest cavity to drain blood and fluid.
After surgery, you’ll recover in a specialized intensive care unit, with most patients staying for about two weeks. Your transplant team will monitor you for infection, organ rejection and medication side effects.
Your recovery may include cardiac rehabilitation. This medically supervised program offers extra support, education and coaching to help get you on the right track after surgery.
Once you go home, you’ll visit a Wisconsin heart transplant center or heart transplant Milwaukee-area clinic regularly so we can make sure you’re recovering well. Your visits may include blood tests, X-rays or other imaging, or biopsies. You’ll also receive ongoing education and support. If you live far away, we’ll work with your doctor to have blood and other lab work done nearby and sent to us.
As you recover, your doctors will fine-tune your immunosuppressive medications. These medications help prevent your body from rejecting your new heart. You’ll keep taking these medications for the rest of your life.
Within a few months, you should feel strong enough to go back to work and resume daily activities.
Placing your trust in our team
People from around eastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois choose Aurora Health Care as their Wisconsin heart transplant center because of our track record of safety and excellence.
You can feel confident with our:
- National ranking: U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks our heart program among the best in the country. We’re dedicated to improving and transforming heart care.
- Top team: We perform an average of 25 to 30 heart transplants every year as a Wisconsin heart transplant center. To put that in perspective, more than 60% of transplant programs worldwide only perform 10 to 15 heart transplants per year. Having more experience means our surgeons know what works best if you need a heart transplant.
- Exceptional results: Our transplant recipients have survival rates that beat the national average. That means our recipients, and their hearts, often recover better than statistics might predict they would. This pattern holds true one year, three years and five years after transplant. It’s also true for some people we treat who are particularly ill and can’t receive care elsewhere.
We also transplant other organs, including kidneys, liver and pancreas. Learn more about our transplant services.
Furthering clinical expertise through fellowship
For medical residency graduates, our heart failure and transplant fellowship program offers advanced heart transplant surgery training in preparing current and future physicians.
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