ABSTRACT
On December 1, 1982, at the University of Utah Hospital, Dr. William DeVries implanted a Jarvik-7 artificial heart into the chest of Barney Clark. Many artificial heart experiments had been conducted on animals, Barney Clark was only the third human subject of such experiments. People asked whether the artificial heart implant was really in Clark's best interests. The artificial heart is being used as a "bridge" to keep terminal heart patients alive until they can receive human heart transplants. The most National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute panel to review the artificial heart program was the 1985 Working Group on Mechanical Circulatory Support. Any attempt to estimate the probable cost of the artificial heart program must take two sorts of costs into account: the costs of research and development and those entailed by the clinical use of the artificial heart.
