NEWARK, NJ — Newark Beth Israel, part of RWJ Barnabas Health, the largest hospital network in New Jersey, is on track to perform its 1,000th heart transplant by the end of this summer, administrators say.

Beth Israel administrators say that the medical center - one of the largest heart transplant centers in the nation – will join only 11 other hospitals in the U.S. which can claim the same accomplishment.

"The path to establishing this hospital program has not been simple, and would not have been possible without Dr. Zucker's understanding of organ procurement in the late 80's, and his willingness to network across professional associations and organizations beyond the hospital," administrators stated in a news release.

"The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) was still in its infancy in the late 1980's," Zucker recalled. "At the time, organ recovery and transplantation was still dominated by doctor referrals and smaller networks of organ procurement organizations. Newark Beth Israel's location in New Jersey was also a boon to the program, since it was a member of a different allocation region from New York City. Doctors would tell their patients that if they needed an excellent program, for faster organ availability, they should go to New Jersey, and they'd refer them to me."