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MUSC's transplant volume ranks among nation's top MUSC is ranked 17th among the nation’s 270 transplant centers for the volume of solid organ transplants performed in the year 2000. According to an article in Transplant Week, an online transplantation newsletter, MUSC performed 277 transplants to Emory’s 259, Duke’s 245, Vanderbilt’s 167, UNC’s 159, Jewish (Kentucky) 141, Carolinas’ 140, and the University of Virginia’s 136. The ranking makes MUSC the busiest transplant center in all of UNOS (United Network on Organ Sharing) Region 11, which includes South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. The approximately 270 transplant centers located across the United States vary greatly by size. To be a designated organ transplant center and to have access to donated organs and the system that matches donors and recipients, a hospital must meet standards set by UNOS, the not-for-profit contractor that runs the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network for the Department of Health and Human Services.  UNOS also sets clinical standards for organ transplant programs, including specific qualifications for physicians, surgeons and volume of experience. But while all the transplant centers listed by Transplant Week meet UNOS criteria, there are large differences in the total number of transplants these programs perform each year. Some members of the medical community believe that a transplant surgeon—or transplant center—that performs a complex procedure more often has better results than one who performs the procedure less frequently.