After Heart Transplant

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A heart transplant significantly alters your life. Receiving a transplant means a lifetime of medication, frequent follow-up visits and ongoing monitoring by doctors and nurses at UVA.

After Leaving the Hospital

After leaving the hospital, you will need to:

  • Check your vital signs daily (temperature, weight, blood pressure and pulse)
  • Take prescribed medications
  • Take regularly scheduled routine lab tests (at a lab close to home)

Follow-Up Care

After the transplant, you will need to stay monitored by and in close communication with your transplant team. 

The First Year

Your first year post-transplant, you will need regular monthly visits to check your progress and catch any signs of organ rejection as early as possible. At each visit, we will either:

  • Biopsy your heart or
  • Perform gene testing (a blood test) 

The First to Second Year

You will need to visit the clinic every 3 months for biopsies or gene testing.

The Second Year and Beyond

You'll need:

  • To visit the clinic every 3 months for lab tests
  • A heart biopsy or gene testing every 6-12 months