Congenital heart disease

This specially trained team consists of congenital heart surgeons, pediatric cardiac intensivists, pediatric heart nurses and pediatric perfusionists who run the heart/lung bypass machine.

Patient-centered care in our CICU means that our specialists work with you—the one who knows your child best—to help your child recover swiftly and safely from heart surgery, catheter procedures, complex treatments or complications from heart conditions. With specialty training in fields including pediatric critical care, cardiology and cardiac anesthesia—combined with leading-edge monitoring and support technology—our experts are able to recognize and respond to problems quickly and effectively.

The CICU at Medical City Children’s Hospital is one of the few cardiac units of its kind in the nation, allowing each child to stay in the same private room from admission to discharge. The high-tech rooms adapt to the level of care the patient may need, which eliminates the need to transfer the patient to other units in the hospital. Our rooms provide all of the family amenities of a regular acute care patient room with the addition of technology designed specifically for intensive care. Throughout their hospital stay, our cardiac patients are treated by one dedicated healthcare team. This unique model of care provides continuity that greatly improves patient safety, as well as patient and family comfort and satisfaction, research shows.

With more than 50 years of combined experience, our CICU physicians have the following qualifications:

• Board certifications in Pediatrics
• Additional board certifications in either Pediatric Cardiology and/or Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
• Advanced fellowships in Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care

You can rest assured that your child will always receive prompt, expert medical attention by one of our board-certified physicians—and never by a physician in training or a medical student. Cardiac intensive care attending physicians are available in the CICU 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Our nurse practitioners are similarly qualified, with

• Certifications in Pediatric Critical Care and Pediatric Primary Care

Bringing the highest level of knowledge and expertise to each patient, our team of pediatric cardiac intensivists works closely with the Heart Center's anesthesiologists, cardiologists, neonatologists, surgeons, cardiac advanced nurse practitioners and cardiac nurses. To make sure your child receives the most comprehensive care possible, the team also works with experts from different healthcare specialties. This multidisciplinary team meets daily to discuss and personalize each patients’ care plan, which means your child has the benefit of having multiple doctors weigh in on different treatment options.

We understand how important family is to the healing process. In addition to offering private rooms, the CICU features:

• Dedicated beds for newborns to toddlers as well as for children and young adults.
• Connection to Medical City Women's Hospital, the only birthing center in the region where moms and babies are cared for under the same roof. This lets us provide immediate care for newborns who need urgent cardiac treatment, while keeping them close to their mothers as they recover from delivery.
• Family space in rooms so that one parent can stay at their child's bedside 24/7.
• Private consultation rooms for parent-physician conversations.
• Dedicated waiting room for families of CICU patients only in immediate proximity to the CICU.
• Families are encouraged to participate and ask questions on daily multidisciplinary rounds in the CICU.
• Dedicated Child Life Services, a department at Medical City Children's Hospital that provides invaluable resources for helping your child cope with surgery and other medical procedures. The specialists use play therapy, videos, games, music and more, to help explain things in ways children can understand. The aim is to help relieve stress, provide distraction and make the experience less scary.
• Families who have a child diagnosed with a congenital heart abnormality can benefit from connecting with people who have had or are having similar experiences. That's why parents of former Medical City Children's Hospital patients lead a congenital heart support group called Amazing Little Hearts. The mission of Amazing Little Hearts is to provide families affected by congenital heart disease with compassionate care and support. Families meet monthly to share experiences, encouragement and advice.

Once your child's hospitalization is completed, we encourage parents to let their child get back to being a kid. Children have amazing recovery abilities and intuitively understand to stop playing if they overexert themselves. All of our patients receive ongoing care from their cardiologists, and their congenital heart surgeon personally follows up with their obstetrician and pediatrician. Our board-certified physicians also specialize in advanced minimally invasive procedures. With Medical City Dallas on the same campus as Medical City Children's Hospital, your child can receive expert, ongoing heart care into adulthood.

Some babies who are born with a single ventricle defect, such as hypoplastic left heart syndrome, are fragile when they are discharged from the hospital. While we know that the time spent at home with family is important, parents should also be aware that there is an increased risk of potentially life-threatening medical complications that can occur between your child's birth and their second major operation, usually performed when they are around six months of age. To help these fragile infants stay as safe as possible during this high-risk period, we use the Hearts at Home Monitoring Program. This technology allows home monitoring of key health measures and provides early recognition of warning symptoms.

The unique program at Medical City Children's has taken this monitoring one step further to include weekly scheduled video visits with the patient and family in their home, along with daily remote patient monitoring via an iPad that is sent home with the family. In addition to being monitored by your cardiologist, your baby will be followed daily by an advanced nurse practitioner in the CICU who will be alerted to any changes that may warrant you visiting your pediatrician or cardiologist.

When your baby is discharged from the hospital, you will receive:

• A pulse oximeter, which is a painless sensor device for measuring oxygen levels in the blood
• A baby digital scale
• An iPad that will be specially configured so that you can:
  • Record your child's vital signs and share them with the care team
  • Record and share other important data about your child's condition
  • Attend video calls with the care team
• A binder featuring a one-page healthcare dashboard, allowing you to quickly and accurately share important medical information with any healthcare team that treats your child

Pediatric electrophysiologists diagnose and treat heart arrhythmias (abnormal and dangerous heart rhythms) in children. When there’s a problem with the electrical signals that control the heartbeat, the result is one of many types of arrhythmias. While some arrhythmias are not dangerous, others can cause the heart to pump less effectively and may be life-threatening.

Arrhythmias affect the heartbeat in different ways. Some cause the heart to beat too quickly (tachycardia), some cause the heart to beat too slowly (bradycardia), and some cause the heart to beat in an irregular fashion (fibrillation).

Arrhythmias are named for the area of the heart where the electrical problems begin. A child diagnosed with the most common type of tachycardia in children - supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), also called paroxysmal atrial tachycardia (PAT) - has a condition in which the atria (upper chamber of the heart) beats too fast.

Arrhythmias can often go undetected, especially since they may not cause symptoms all of the time. Signs that your child may have an arrhythmia can include:

• Heart palpitations (fluttering or skipping beats)
• Unexplained dizziness or fainting
• Family history of sudden cardiac death

If your child has a suspected arrhythmia, the electrophysiology specialists at the Heart Center at Medical City Children's Hospital in Dallas will use leading-edge diagnostic tools, including an electrophysiology study (EPS), to identify problems with the heart’s electrical system. The electrophysiology study is performed using cardiac catheterization—a highly specialized procedure that can be used to both diagnose and treat a variety of heart conditions.

Other tests that may be used to diagnose arrythmias include electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG), exercise stress testing, Holter or event monitoring, implantable loop recording (ILR), stress/rest myocardial perfusion imaging, provocative intracardiac electrophysiology testing, and provocative pharmacologic testing.

If your physician determines that your child’s arrhythmia requires treatment, our specialists will create an individualized treatment plan for you. This customized treatment plan will be based on many factors, including the type of arrhythmia your child has, how severe the symptoms are, and whether or not your child has other heart problems or medical conditions.

Treatment options may include medical therapy management, cardioversion, ablation procedures, and placement of pacemakers/defibrillators.

It can be concerning any time your child has to go under anesthesia—and even more so when they are being treated for a heart condition. The unwavering goal of our pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists is to make sure your child is comfortable, safe and receives the personalized care that he or she deserves. Our comprehensive anesthesia care includes board-certified pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists who work in tandem with heart surgeons and other cardiac specialists to ensure the best possible outcome for your child.

The cardiac specialists at Medical City Children’s Hospital are equipped to treat the most medically fragile infants. Our advanced treatments include extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a heart-lung machine support system often used for babies with congenital heart abnormalities. The goal of ECMO is to mechanically function as the heart and lungs, allowing them to rest and support the healing process after surgery.

ECMO therapy requires a large team of experienced caregivers. Our dedicated perfusionists and ECMO specialists care deeply about the health and safety of every child and use all their skills and expertise to ensure the best possible outcomes.

The ECMO Team at Medical City Children’s Hospital has been recognized as a “Gold Standard” ECMO program since 2013 by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization.

Camp Brave Heart is a weekend pediatric cardiac camp that provides a medically safe and fun summer camp experience to children ages 7 to 16 who have congenital heart defects or heart disease and have been or are being treated at Medical City Children's Hospital. The camp is free for current and former pediatric heart patients.

Visit the Camp Brave Heart Facebook page for updates and details.