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Cardiac Surgery

Why Choose Us for Your Child's Care

• We provide all therapies a newborn, child, adolescent or adult with congenital heart disease may need -- from evaluating heart function and anatomy in utero to pediatric heart transplant and extended heart/lung support via Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO). In addition, our surgeons are renowned for implantation of pacemakers and defibrillators in infants and children using endocardial techniques. We are also widely recognized for neonatal heart surgery and many of the procedures we perform are in low-birth-weight newborns and in infants under the age of one month.
• U.S.News & World Report has ranked our pediatric heart and heart surgery program as one of the nation's top 10.
• Each year, our pediatric cardiac surgical teams perform more than 700 cardiac operations at both our Columbia and Weill Cornell campuses -- many of which are complex surgeries referred to us from medical centers around the country. It has been demonstrated that improved clinical outcomes are closely linked to centers with high surgical volumes. As a center's activity increases, cardiothoracic surgeons, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, nurses, perfusionists and other cardiac team members become more experienced at caring for patients with congenital heart disease.
• We consistently rank as the best in pediatric care in the New York region, with the lowest mortality for pediatric heart surgery in the state.
• Our outcomes are well above established national benchmarks. For the years 2007-2009, our average hospital mortality was 2.4 percent. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) global hospital mortality for all participating pediatric cardiac centers was 3.7 percent.
• The Congenital Heart Center has the only pediatric catheterization laboratories in metropolitan New York dedicated to pediatric pulmonary hypertension and arrhythmia studies, as well as diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, such as radiofrequency ablation for cardiac arrhythmias and balloon valvuloplasty of the aortic and pulmonary valves.
• Each year, the Center performs more than 1,200 diagnostic and interventional cardiac catheterizations.
• The Congenital Heart Center provides collaborative, multidisciplinary care. Bringing together our pediatric surgical, medical, anesthesiology, perfusion, critical care and cardiovascular support specialists into an integrated care team helps us to optimize patient outcomes. This integrated care model enables us to provide seamless interaction with all subspecialties, resulting in the best and safest treatment for our youngest patients.
• Our Cardiac Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is designated the highest level NICU and a regional perinatal center by the New York State Department of Health.
• The Congenital Heart Center is one of just a few U.S. centers to have a hybrid program for infants and children and is the only one in New York State.
• Every clinician in our program, including cardiologists, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, surgeons, intensivists and laboratory technicians, is committed to blood conservation in pediatric cardiac surgery.
• Our surgeons are held to a rigorous standard. We hold weekly multidisciplinary risk-adjusted-mortality and morbidity conferences, where we review data on every patient.
• Twice a year, each surgeon receives a surgeon-specific performance metric. The result: we are able to maintain the highest quality by identifying potential problems early, which ultimately makes our patients safer.
• We consider referring physicians an important part of our cardiac team and we are committed to keeping them updated about a patient's medical status, major treatment recommendations and progress during hospitalization. Within hours after patients leave the Hospital, we also provide a detailed discharge summary to all referring physicians for their reference and continuum of patient care.
• Close to 100 percent of our patients survive Ventricular Septal Defect Repair, even in premature and very low-birth-weight babies.
• Our pediatric heart surgeons have pioneered many of the innovative surgical techniques used today to treat heart valve disease in children.
• In 1984, surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital performed the world's first successful pediatric heart transplant.