Evaluation of surgical procedures. Changing patterns of patient selection and costs in heart transplantation.

During the past 4 years we have observed a marked increase in costs of heart transplantation in our center. This trend coincides with a shift in our recipient population toward the more severely ill patients. The percentage of patients bound for the intensive care unit has doubled. In analyzing the components of cost, we find that the length of stay, both in special care and regular nursing units, accounts for most of the cost increase. In our study of outcomes we find no significant difference in survival, at 1 month and 1 year, between recipients operated on from the intensive care unit and those not in intensive care