KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? KU Med will indefinitely delay reviving its heart transplant program, officials said Friday.

Surgeons at the Kansas University-affiliated hospital had expected to perform transplants by now. But CEO Irene Cumming said adding another program to the mix now would overburden other KU Med programs, especially with increased patient loads from the closing of two Kansas City hospitals.

“We have invested much in equipment and training to position the hospital to commence heart transplants,” Cumming said. “However, the climate has changed since we began our process to bring back the transplant program.”

The transplant program has been on hiatus since 1995, when a state audit showed mismanagement had caused donor hearts not to be matched with patients. Officials began planning for a new transplant program in fall 2001.

Cumming said the closing of Trinity Lutheran Hospital and Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City had added to the patient load at KU Med.

Also, she said, the approximately 30 cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons who came to KU Med from St. Luke’s Hospital in 2001 have seen a 50 percent increase in heart surgeries over last year. Dennis McCulloch, a KU Med spokesman, said the surgeons now were averaging 50 procedures a month.

“While we are successfully keeping pace with the growth in cardiothoracic surgery and in our overall patient volume, starting a transplant unit could unnecessarily strain our facility and resources,” Cumming said. “Also, the slumping economy puts pressure on us to hold down costs, while the number of uninsured patients is continually increasing. We must focus our resources on programs that continue our track record of successfully serving an increasing number of patients.”

McCulloch said KU Med had notified the United Network of Organ Sharing of its decision. He said no timeline had been developed for restarting the program, though he said all training had been completed.

“We’re at the point medically where we’re ready to go,” he said. “In terms of the capacity of the system and making sure we’re focused financially, we need to decide what’s the best thing for our patients.”

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KU Med’s board has been considering adding new space for the heart program and possibly building a separate heart hospital. No time frame has been set for that, though McCulloch said the completion of the new space could be the right time to start transplants.

McCulloch said he didn’t have an estimate for how much KU Med had invested in its transplant program, because many of the expenses also helped with the heart surgery program.

Christine Hamele, who owns Hamele Healthcare, an Overland Park medical consulting firm, said she wasn’t surprised KU Med delayed the start of its transplant program.

“Health care in Kansas City has experienced enormous changes in the last year,” she said. “They’re shooting for excellence, and at this point that’s what they’ve been able to deliver (with the surgery program). With a new product line, everything has to work well. It doesn’t surprise me if there were even one small kink, they’d postpone things.”

She also said she thought KU Med’s previous problems with heart transplants made it more important for all details to be worked out before transplants begin again.

Past problems

The former KU Med transplant program, which began in 1984, admitted patients for 10 months during 1994 and 1995 but performed no transplants because all surgeons who met the requirements of the United Network of Organ Sharing had left the staff.

Reports showed KU Med rejected 45 donor hearts during that time, with half declined for non-medical, or administrative, reasons. However, patients on the waiting list weren’t informed of the denials. Two top administrators — CEO Glenn Potter and KU School of Medicine Dean Daniel Hollander — resigned after state auditors concluded mismanagement caused the program’s collapse.

“That adds to the mix as well,” Hamele said.

After KU Med announced plans to revive its transplant program in fall 2001, some health care analysts said Kansas City didn’t need another heart program in addition to the one at St. Luke’s Hospital’s Mid American Heart Institute.

But Hamele said she thought Kansas City could support both programs.

“I think there’s no question another heart transplant program would do fine based on the data in the Kansas City marketplace,” she said. “Programs of this magnitude don’t just treat the metropolitan area. They have secondary regions they serve.”