GRAND RAPIDS — The Michigan Department of Community Health says it has given Spectrum Health Hospitals permission to perform heart and lung transplants in Grand Rapids.

The department said Thursday it issued a certificate of need for Spectrum to start Michigan's latest heart-lung transplant center.

Spectrum's Butterworth site in Grand Rapids applied for the certificate in October. The state says a condition for is approval is that Spectrum perform at least 12 heart or heart-lung transplants annually in its second year of operation.

The state's other heart-lung transplant centers are at Henry Ford Hospital and Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit and at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.

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On the Net:

Michigan Department of Community Health: http://www.michigan.gov/mdch