MISSION
To bring resources together
to help Heart Failure patients & their loved ones survive life with Heart Failure & all its challenges.
WHY WE'RE HERE
At this very moment, 3,500 of the 6.2 million Americans with Heart Failure wait tenuously for a heart transplant. The typical wait is six months or more, and many spend much of that time hospitalized with an LVAD while loved ones travel back and forth—often over great distances—to support them and oversee their care. Pre-pandemic, about 10% of these patients would survive the wait and receive matching hearts. No matter the outcome, in the wake of this emotional and physical rollercoaster, families are devastated by the experience and its crushing debt. At the HeartBrothers Foundation, we know this nightmare first-hand: we are Heart Failure and heart transplant survivors.
We met during our yearlong hospital stays on LVADs, vowing that if our heart matches came up—and if our bodies could endure the wait, procedure, and recovery—we would start a nonprofit foundation to create the financial, educational, and emotional support system surprisingly lacking yet so desperately needed by these patients and their families.
We received our donor hearts near the beginning of 2013, dedicated our renewed lives to our fellow patients, launched the HeartBrothers on September 1, 2014, and have been embracing, uplifting, and supporting the Heart Failure community ever since.
Photos are of actual HeartBrothers patients, families, supporters, and events.
EXPANDING OUR REaCH
We launched our first HeartBrothers programs at Boston's Tufts Medical Center in 2014. Since then, we have expanded our Team HeartBrothers Ambassadors' reach to 40+ Heart Failure hospitals, thanks to continuous referrals from Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Rhode Island Hospital, UMass Memorial Medical Center, Maine Medical Center, Baystate Medical Center, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, University of Vermont Medical Center, Yale-New Haven Hospital, University of Rochester Medical Center, Hartford Hospital, University of Utah Hospital, and Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The pandemic forced us to pivot nearly all our programming to virtual—which now allows us to connect with Heart Failure families anywhere in the world. We continue to establish relationships with hospitals nationwide, with the goal of supporting as many community members as possible.
Through the ongoing dedication of every member of the HeartBrothers Foundation team, what began as the hopeful focal point of two Heart Failure patients uncertain whether they would receive successful heart transplants has transformed into a living, breathing Heart Failure support network in every sense of those words—and our determination to improve and expand only grows stronger every day.