As the only regional hospital exclusively committed to the health and well-being of pediatric and adolescent patients, CHOC is dedicated to nurturing, advancing and protecting the health and well-being of all children. The CHOC Heart Institute brings hope to children with heart disease and their families, providing state of the art diagnosis and treatment for an entire spectrum of cardiac conditions in newborns to adolescents.

Specialized Expertise
The CHOC Heart Institute treats virtually all known forms of congenital and acquired heart disease and we are the only regional facility to perform neonatal and pediatric open heart surgery. CHOC has assembled a multi-disciplinary team who are specially trained in the management of infants and children with congenital heart defects.

In order to accurately diagnose and treat each patient, we provide an array of comprehensive cardio diagnostic services including:

• Electrocardiogram (EKG), Holter Monitoring and Cardiac Event Monitor Recording
• Exercise Treadmill Test
• Transthoracic and Transesophageal Echocardiography
• Fetal Echocardiography/Prenatal Cardiac Diagnosis
• Diagnostic Cardiac Catheterization
• Therapeutic Cardiac Catheterization
  • Catheter Deployed Devices
  • Radiofrequency and Cryoablation
• Pacemaker and Internal Cardiac Defibrillator (ICD) Interrogation
• General Radiology
• Chest X-Ray
• CAT Scan
• Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Near Infrared Spectroscopy – oxygen monitoring for the brain and heart

The fully integrated heart team, including pediatric Cardiologists, Cardiac Surgeons, Cardiac Intensivists, Anesthesiologists, Perfusionists, Cardiovascular Nurse Practitioners, Respiratory Therapists, Dieticians and Case Managers, all with specialized cardiac training and experience, will meet to discuss your child’s case and to determine the best course of treatment.

If your child needs heart surgery, The CHOC Heart Institute offers the latest in cardiac surgical techniques to repair congenital heart defects in newborns to adolescents. Our prenatal cardiodiagnostic services provide fetal echocardiography to identify congenital heart lesions before birth. Although our highly skilled surgical team operates on pediatric patients of all ages, early definitive repair is the preferred approach in many instances. We have performed open heart surgery in premature infants weighing as little as 1.4 kg. Our Cardiac Surgeons are an integral part of our multidisciplinary team of specialists, collaborating closely with the rest of our heart team experts to ensure optimal outcomes for our surgical patients.

Once the patient is ready to go home, our Cardiac Nurse Practitioner will coordinate discharge planning for your child and will work with you and your family to provide education about what to expect during your child’s recuperation at home.

Personalized Care
At the CHOC Heart Institute, we believe every patient is unique. Once an appointment is made through a referral from your family primary care physician or specialist, your child may undergo several diagnostic tests to help our specialists make or confirm a diagnosis. Once diagnosed, each patient is followed by a Pediatric Cardiovascular Nurse Practitioner.  The Nurse Practitioner serves as an advocate for you and your child, attends all case conferences, facilitates patient appointments and ensures seamless care between inpatient and outpatient treatment. After your care team’s conference, the specialist will meet with you to outline your child’s individual treatment plan, which will include type of treatment and length of therapy. Our specialists work closely with your referring physician to ensure that there is coordination of care as well as close communication. At the CHOC Heart Institute, we believe that your referring physician is an important member of our treatment team and vital to your child’s long-term care.

Supportive Environment
At the CHOC Heart Institute, we recognize that when your child is ill and needs hospitalization, you and your entire family are affected. As a family centered care environment, we encourage patient family and friends to participate in the treatment of each patient. We invite parents to participate in daily multidisciplinary team rounds and patient case conferences.

In CHOC’s recently opened 12 bed Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, each patient has a spacious single room with sleeping accommodations so a parent may spend the night in their child’s room. All of the CVICU rooms are outfitted with leading-edge technology equal to the demands of monitoring children after complex operations. This technology includes use of Near InfraRed Spectroscopy (NIRS) to calculate oxygen saturation in the heart and brain, as well as the use of rapid-assessment bedside ultrasound to instantly calculate pulmonary artery pressures and ejection fraction – two key indicators of real-time cardiac function. The unit includes two fully-equipped procedure rooms that enable our specialists to perform emergency life-saving procedures on children too unstable to be transported out of the unit.

The CHOC Heart Institute also believes in allowing a child to be a child and creating a sense of normalcy through play, discovery and creativity. We offer the most comprehensive child-life and family support programs in the region and are committed to promoting the fullest developmental potential of each child.

• Parent Support Groups
• Early Developmental Assessment Program
• Rehabilitation Services
• Complementary/Alternative Medicine Services
• Psychosocial Support

In addition, while their child is in the hospital, the family has access to the Ronald McDonald Room, adjacent to the CVICU. Run by volunteers from the Ronald McDonald House, parents have access to a business center, a stocked kitchen and one of three private sleeping rooms.

Contact Us
We work in close partnership with referring physicians to ensure that your access to the CHOC Heart Institute is timely and direct. We offer consultations for evaluation of newly diagnosed heart defects, ongoing acquired/congenital heart defects, management of current cardiac conditions, physician-to physician consultations and second opinions.