Heart-felt joy for heart transplant recipients at Kaiser Permanente

For Kaiser Permanente cardiac patient Jim Steeb of Sacramento, a heart transplant couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time last year. The surgeon told him his original, failing heart stopped beating, just a few minutes after he arrived in the operating room for his transplant surgery.

“I think you’ll find that heart transplant recipients are among the among the happiest people in the world,” said Steeb, who was sitting among more than a hundred transplant recipients at the annual holiday luncheon at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara .

Santa Clara is the Kaiser Permanente Northern California specialty center for heart transplant, where patients receive high level care and evaluation before surgery, and post-transplant recovery care after surgery.

Every year, the transplant group at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara sponsors a sumptuous holiday luncheon for patients. The decorations include a video “fireplace” displaying a roaring fire, a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments bearing the names and transplant dates of patients and a lot of greeting hugs led by transplant services leader Dr. Dana Weisshaar.

“2015 was our busiest year,” says Dr. Weisshaar. “We’ve had 28 patients receive new hearts and 26 receive LVADs [left ventricular assist devices] so far this year.”
.
Kaiser Permanente’s transplant program is over 20 years old. The annual luncheon has been held for as many years. While Kaiser Permanente doesn’t do the actual transplant surgery, the care patients receive before and after surgery has contributed to some longtime survival numbers. One of the transplant patients at the luncheon is a 29- year long transplant recipient. Several have lived with their new hearts more than 20 years.
.
“I was transplanted in 2009,” says Lauren Ward of Novato. “Every year I tell Dr. Weisshaar ‘You saved my life’ and then ‘Have I told you lately thank you?’”

Both Ward and Steeb say it was Kaiser Permanente’s integrated and coordinated care system that made their trip from heart failure to heart transplant successful. They point out that some heart failure patients who are not in the Kaiser Permanente system struggle every day to survive.

Some Kaiser Permanente heart failure patients have received Left Ventricular Assist Devices, or LVADs. These miniature pumps are surgically implanted and attached to the heart to provide life-preserving blood flow when the heart start to fail. To provide continuous power to the pump, recipients wear electronic components (controller and batteries) externally which are connected to the pump via a cable which comes through the skin. Once thought of as a “bridge to transplant,” LVADs nowadays are being worn long-term.
Dr. Weisshaar said that some of her newly-implanted LVAD patients participated in a recent Kaiser Permanente-sponsored Silicon Valley Heart Walk to benefit the American Heart Association.
But she pointed out not all the transplant stories have a happy ending. Dr. Weisshaar spent some time comforting a woman who came to the luncheon alone: her husband had gone through the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara heart transplant program and was waiting for a new heart but died before one became available.
“I’ve learned that the donors are our heroes,” said Dr. Weisshaar, recalling an emotional story about treating a terminally-ill patient who was not in the transplant program, but who had already agreed to be a donor. “Being on the other side showed me again how important this process is.”
Addressing the transplant recipients, Dr. Weisshaar said, “You all teach me every day how to enjoy every day.”