Tampa General Hospital has surpassed 15,000 organ transplants, a milestone reached by a small number of facilities nationwide and one that reflects the growing prominence of Florida in the field of transplant medicine.
The achievement comes after a period of rapid growth for the 52-year-old program.
In 2025, the hospital completed 895 transplant procedures, finishing among the nation’s top five centers for the third consecutive year, according to a Thursday press release. The hospital ranked No. 1 nationally in 2024 with 889 procedures and fourth in 2023 with 756.
“Tampa General is not just a premier destination for patients seeking life-saving transplants, but an academic-based, research-driven and nationally ranked program that has proven to deliver the best possible patient outcomes,” TGH president and CEO John Couris said in the release.
According to TGH, higher transplant volume translates into greater surgical expertise and stronger patient outcomes, particularly in complex multiorgan procedures.
Every six months, the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients evaluates transplant programs around the country on metrics important to patients and physicians, including one-year survival rates, wait-list survival and how quickly patients receive transplants. Patients and health professionals use the information to decide where to seek — or refer someone for — care.
Tampa General exceeded national averages in one-year survival rates for lung, heart, liver and kidney transplants, according to the registry.
“This milestone is ultimately about patients,” said Kiran Dhanireddy, vice president and chief of the TGH Transplant Institute. “Each transplant represents a life extended, a family given more time and a team working with extraordinary purpose.”
Tampa General’s 2025 numbers included:
- 519 kidney transplants
- 284 liver transplants
- 42 heart transplants
- 42 lung transplants
- eight kidney-pancreas transplants
- 23 dual-organ transplants
- 135 living-donor procedures
Among the nation’s top providers
Tampa General, an academic teaching hospital in partnership with the University of South Florida, sits among a relatively small group of transplant systems that measure their cumulative procedures in the tens of thousands.
Those include Mayo Clinic, whose transplant centers in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida performed a record 2,065 solid organ transplants in 2025 and more than 30,000 overall. Its Arizona campus alone completed a record 917 transplants last year, while the 26-year-old Jacksonville campus performed its 10,000th transplant in October.
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Other longtime transplant giants include Cleveland Clinic, which reported 1,424 transplants across three locations in 2025, including its Weston hospital in Broward County; the UCSF Health program in California; and UPMC Transplant Center in Pittsburgh, both of which have surpassed 20,000 transplants.
In Florida, Miami Transplant Institute — a partnership between Jackson Memorial Hospital and UM Health — approached 15,000 transplants after performing 504 procedures in 2025. UF Health Shands in Gainesville has reported more than 10,000 transplants since launching its program in 1994.
Like many other high-volume centers, Tampa General credits part of its growth to expanded use of organ-perfusion technology that keeps donor organs viable longer and allows surgeons to accept organs from farther away.
Traditionally, donor organs were transported in coolers with preservation solution. Perfusion systems use sophisticated pumps to keep blood flowing through organs outside the body before transplantation.
Also known as ex vivo perfusion, the technology allows lungs to exchange oxygen, hearts to continue beating and livers to continue functioning during transport.
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“Perfusion has the potential not only to increase donor availability but also to have recipients in better condition,” said Dr. Si Pham, chair of cardiothoracic surgery at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.
In a news release, Phan said ex vivo perfusion requires surgical skill as well as additional personnel support that may “hurt a medical center's bottom line," but if it shortens patients' transplant wait times and reduces pretransplant hospital length of stay, that will make the cost go down."
TGH said it was the first hospital in Florida to use the technology for heart, lung and liver transplantation, and in 2025 used it in nearly three-fourths of its procedures. Procurement teams traveled more than 100,000 miles retrieving donor organs from across the country.
Demand for transplants skyrockets
Florida has emerged as one of the nation’s busier transplant states in recent years, recording more than 3,200 in 2024 — second only to California. Tampa General said it accounted for nearly a third of those procedures.
Other major transplant centers in the state include UF Health Shands, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and Mayo Clinic Jacksonville. There are about 10 total.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 48,000 transplants took place in 2024, but more than 100,000 people are on a waiting list — and an average of 13 of them die each day. Most procedures involve a kidney.
Florida’s waiting list includes more than 5,000, UM Health’s Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency reports.
That high demand is luring more health systems into the transplant market. That includes BayCare, which announced in March it plans to begin a program next year at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa.
“Every year, dozens of our neighbors leave our region to receive the transplant services they need to live fuller, healthier lives,” BayCare president and CEO Stephanie Conners said in a statement. “Our neighbors deserve better and BayCare is committed to providing the highly specialized services they need so they can receive care close to home.”
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Tampa General is addressing the demand by building through construction of the Taneja Surgical, Neuroscience & Transplant Tower, a 565,000-square-foot facility slated for completion in 2028. The center will provide additional intensive care and in-patient capacity for complex patients as well as advanced research and multidisciplinary care with the hospital's USF Health partners.
The importance of transplant volume and institutional experience has also become part of a broader statewide debate, with several large hospitals — including TGH — opposing proposed regulatory changes they argued could lower standards for approving new transplant programs.
In August, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration issued a proposed rule revising standards for hospitals seeking to provide transplant services. TGH, UF Health Shands and Jackson Memorial challenged the rule, arguing it lacked quality safeguards and minimum volume requirements.
At the same time, federal officials are pursuing reforms of the nation’s transplant system, including stricter oversight of organ procurement organizations, modernization of transplant data systems and efforts to increase the number of organs successfully transplanted nationwide.
