The Miami Transplant Institute's heart transplant program, which was shuttered from March to July, has named Hari Mallidi, MD, as chief.
Dr. Mallidi, a thoracic surgeon who heads cardiac surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, will join the Miami Transplant Institute in mid-November. He replaced Matthias Loebe, MD, who was released from his duties in February after the United Network for Organ Sharing said it would investigate at least one patient death.
The institute — which is jointly run by Jackson Health System, a public safety-net system based in Miami, and the University of Miami's UHealth — abruptly halted its adult heart transplant program in March to undergo review by the UNOS. Investigators visited the transplant center in April after complaints about poor patient outcomes, including infection and death, following heart transplants, as well as a complaint about poor patient selection for the hospital's left ventricular assist device procedure. In July, the program was cleared of deficiencies and was reactivated later that month.
"Since voluntarily deactivating the program in March, MTI implemented changes focused on leadership, enhanced teamwork and communication, and process improvement – all aimed at elevating the heart transplant program to the same level of excellence as our other organ transplant programs," a hospital spokersperson said in a statement to Becker's.
Dr. Mallidi will take on a larger role than his predecessor, serving as the system chief of cardiac surgery at Jackson Health and director of the Jackson Heart Institute, and becoming a faculty member of the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.