Intermountain Health’s Adult Organ Transplant Program Again Achieves Record-Breaking Milestone Year

For the sixth consecutive year, Intermountain Health’s adult transplant program is celebrating a record-breaking year in 2024, which resulted in hundreds of saved lives of people in the Mountain West through generous live and deceased organ donations from across the country.

The Intermountain Health Adult Transplant program, located at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, successfully transplanted 489 organs in 2024, a significant increase from the 414 transplants performed in 2023. This also represents a growth of over 200% over the last five years and with this more than twice as many lives in the Mountain West have been saved.

These transplants profoundly impacted and transformed the lives of hundreds, thanks to short wait times and utilization of new technology.

Among these transplants:
• 267 were kidney transplants, marking a 34% growth from last year and 214% growth from five years ago.
• 189 were liver transplants, up from 182 the previous year and when compared to 2018 represent a 385% growth.
• 4 were kidney/pancreas transplants
• 29 were lifesaving heart transplants
Intermountain Health’s kidney transplant program has one of the shortest wait-times in the nation, averaging just 109 days from active listing to transplant, compared to many other programs in the country that have wait times that average 3-5 years.

“Due to our ability to accept organs that other programs may not use, we are able to do this safely and achieve some of the best outcomes in the nation,” said Donald Morris Intermountain Health kidney transplant medical director. “This success is attributed to the expertise and experience of our team of nephrologists, surgeons, and transplant caregivers who are paving the way for new organ acceptance practices in the United States, which will provide increased access to transplantation.”

Thirty-two percent of Intermountain Health’s new transplant patients came from areas outside Utah that lack kidney transplants programs, like Idaho and Nevada.

“Intermountain Health is one of very few programs operating in the Mountain West, making the expansion of services to underserved areas as the primary focus of our efforts,” said JoAnna Stephens, Intermountain Health adult transplant director. “Our mission is to provide access to transplantation for patients, no matter where they live, ensuring they receive the life-saving care they need.”

Intermountain Health’s liver transplant program also boasts one of the shortest wait times in the nation, with a median wait time to transplant after listing of 22 days.

Intermountain Health’s Transplant Program became the first in Utah last year to use a new state-of-the-art organ-saving device that helps to maintain donated livers in a near-physiological state outside the body to enhance successful transplantation and help more patients in need of organs.

This new organ-saving technology being used by Intermountain, has helped Intermountain Health’s liver transplant program save precious organs – and the lives of transplant patients desperately awaiting donor organs to survive.

By embracing new cutting-edge technology, the Intermountain Transplant Program has seen a 385% growth from 2018 to 2024, making it the 4th-fastest growing liver program in the nation with better than national outcomes and the shortest wait times for a liver transplant.

The liver transplant program also saw 2,760 new patients last year, with 41% of them coming from outside Utah.

In fact, 92 of the liver transplants performed this past year were for patients from areas outside of Utah and most coming from Idaho. The program recognized a need and will expanding into Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana, which according to recent data have some of the higher mortality from liver disease and some of the lowest rates of transplantation per capita in the United States.

“This unprecedented growth in organ transplantation, and to now be one of the largest transplant enterprises and liver transplant programs in the United States, reflects both the actions of an exceptional multidisciplinary team and the generosity of an ever-increasing community that understands the importance of organ donation; in both living donation and donation after death,” said Richard Gilroy, MD, transplant hepatologist and Intermountain Health’s liver transplant medical director. “However, an inability to access a transplant for residents of the Mountain West existed as recently as 5 years ago as compared to the access in states like California or those in the Northeast. Our institutional leaders and our team understood this and together, with the organ donation community, have designed a system that now provides the residents of Idaho and Utah the highest liver transplant rates per capita in the nation.”

“Although geography elsewhere may remain a barrier to access to a lifesaving transplant, our vision and commitment will soon see geography eliminated as a barrier to a life saved throughout the Mountain West,” added Dr. Gilroy.

In the United States, there are over 103,000 people waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant – a kidney, liver, pancreas, heart or lungs. Every eight minutes another person is added to the national wait list. In Utah, 956 people are on that waiting list. An organ donor can save up to eight lives.

During the past four decades, the Intermountain Heart Transplant Program has grown into a national model and is recognized as a national center of excellence.

“It is rewarding and exciting to be part of a heart program that is one of the best in the country, with high quality outcomes, including 100% patient survival rates at one-year post-heart transplant,” said Rami Alharethi, MD, medical director of the Intermountain Heart Transplant and Artificial Heart Program at Intermountain Medical Center.

Intermountain is also considered a leading program nationally in the Kidney-for-Life program – a National Kidney Registry program that transplants exceptionally well-matched living kidney donors from a national pool.

A Social Media Kidney
Tom McLelland, Provo, 64, knows first-hand how the Kidney-for-Life Program works.

Three years ago, his family took to social media in hopes of helping find their father a new kidney. McLelland’s diabetes had put him into kidney failure, and doing dialysis three times a week, was becoming overwhelming.

Almost 20 family members and friends were tested but were not matches. A social media page, called, “A Kidney for Tom,” then brought hope.

A daughter shared the post with someone in Tennessee, who then shared it with her sister, who said, she “felt a movement inside of her to do something.” She wasn’t a match either, but after months of testing, she donated a kidney on behalf of McLelland, bumping him up the wait list and blessing not one, but two families.

Just 10 months later, on July 27, 2023, McLelland got his new kidney, and new lease on life, at Intermountain Medical Center, from someone he had yet to meet.

McLelland says he’s now camping, enjoying the outdoors, and working out 4 to 5 times a week at the gym. Most importantly, instead of sitting watching the fun at family activities, he’s now fully engaged and actively participating. He’s looking forward to celebrating his next “re-birthday” again this year.

“Because of social media, I have a new friend, a new kidney, and a new life,” said McLelland. “While it only takes one person and one kidney, it takes many of us considering, asking and sharing.”

To learn more about organ donation or register to become an organ donor, go to intermountainhealthcare.org/donatelife.

NOTE TO MEDIA: Images and video available upon request

About Intermountain Health

Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a not-for-profit system of 34 hospitals, approximately 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For up-to-date information and announcements, please see the Intermountain Health newsroom at https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.