Building what’s missing: Hoag’s path toward organ transplant care
For years, Orange County patients facing advanced liver disease needed to leave their community for transplant care, traveling long distances during some of their most medically and emotionally vulnerable moments.
That’s going to change.
Hoag is actively developing a comprehensive abdominal transplant program to bring advanced liver and kidney transplant care closer to home for Orange County patients and families.
But the path toward organ transplantation at Hoag began with recognition, not the operating room.
In early 2019, physicians identified a rapid rise in liver disease across Orange County and a clear need for more advanced, coordinated care. Rather than immediately pursuing transplant surgery, Hoag made a deliberate decision at that time: to build a comprehensive liver program focused on early detection, advanced treatment, and long-term disease management—allowing many patients to be treated without transplant, while laying the groundwork to support transplantation when clinically necessary.
That foundation took shape in 2021 with the recruitment of Dr. Tse-Ling Fong, a nationally recognized transplant hepatologist who previously led liver transplant programs at both Keck Medicine of USC and Cedars-Sinai.
Under his leadership and thanks to philanthropic support, Hoag invested in noninvasive technologies such as FibroScan, enabling physicians to identify liver disease earlier, better understand patient risk, and intervene before serious complications arise.
As patient demand grew, Hoag recruited Dr. Brian Lee as co-director of the liver program in late 2022, followed by Dr. Patrick Lee in 2025. Together, the team expanded advanced protocols to manage cirrhosis, autoimmune liver disease, and chronic hepatitis B, and developed an integrated alcohol-related liver disease clinic designed to treat both the medical and human dimensions of chronic illness.
During this period, Hoag also became one of the few hospitals in the region offering coordinated pre- and post-transplant care for patients receiving transplant surgery elsewhere. To date, Hoag has supported more than 90 liver transplant recipients. By 2025, the program was caring for more than 12,000 patients annually, making it one of the largest and fastest-growing liver programs in the region.
That growth underscored a disquieting reality.
Despite being home to more than 3.1 million residents, Orange County currently does not have a liver transplant program. By comparison, San Diego County, with a similar population, supports two.
For local families, this absence often means leaving their support systems and trusted physicians at the moment stability matters most. Hoag leadership viewed that reality not as a market opportunity, but as a responsibility.
Further strengthening Hoag’s trajectory was the July 2024 appointment of Dr. Kenneth Chang, James & Pamela Muzzy Executive Medical Director Endowed Chair in GI Cancer at the Hoag Digestive Health Institute. Under his leadership, the Institute expanded its academic profile and accelerated recruitment of nationally recognized physician leaders.
With the Institute operating at a new level of regional and national visibility, Hoag successfully recruited the caliber of transplant expertise required to move forward—including Dr. Aaron Ahearn, a nationally recognized liver and kidney transplant surgeon formerly of USC, who was appointed surgical director of the liver program in spring 2026.
“Hoag has built something exceptional,” Dr. Ahearn says. “To help establish a transplant program in a community of this size and need is an extraordinary professional honor. Our goal is to deliver care at the highest national standard while keeping patients close to the physicians and families who support them.”
Transplantation demands more than surgical skill. It requires systems—and Hoag has been methodically building them.
Hoag’s privademic model, which combines academic-level clinical expertise with the agility of a high-performing community health system, has enabled this progress.
The direction is clear: Hoag is laying the foundation for a comprehensive liver and kidney transplant center designed to keep patients close to home, supported by teams they already know and trust, with the first transplants anticipated in 2027.
Because world-class, life-saving care should not require leaving Orange County.
