Children's Hospital Heart Center

At the UVA Children's Hospital Heart Center, your child will receive comprehensive care using the most advanced diagnostic and surgical techniques available. Our cardiologists, heart surgeons, nurse practitioners are trained to care for the unique heart problems of children.

We work with the adult care UVA Heart Center, a state-of-the-art treatment and research facility, to treat infants, children and young adults with:

• Congenital or acquired heart disease
• Heart murmurs
• Chest pain
• High blood pressure
• Heart rhythm disorders
  
• Heart failure

Our patients also include adults who've grown up with congenital heart defects.

Heart Services for Children

Our services include:

• Routine evaluations
• Outreach clinics throughout Virginia
• State-of-the-art echocardiography, including fetal imaging
• Congenital MRI imaging, congenital EP (electrophysiologic) tests and interventional cardiac catheterization
• One of the largest cardiac surgery programs in the mid-Atlantic region, with about 200 cases of congenital cardiac surgeries performed each year
• Cardiac stress testing, cardiac ablation and rhythm management
  
• Pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators
  

Experienced Heart Care for Children

Our Children’s Hospital Heart Center offers:

• The most comprehensive congenital heart center in Virginia
• The largest comprehensive fetal heart program in Virginia, linking our expertise with other UVA specialists — including the region’s top infant emergency services — to ensure the best outcomes for high-risk infants
• The largest pediatric pulmonary hypertension clinic in Virginia

Heart Transplants: Vital Statistics

One of the goals of our children's heart transplant and heart failure program to find ways to either postpone or eliminate the need for a heart transplant.

But if your child does need a heart transplant, we’re the only hospital in the state that performs childhood heart transplants and offers ventricular assist devices (VADs) to children with severe, end-stage heart failure who are waiting for a transplant.

Pictures of the Heart: MRI

We have some of the latest techniques and newest technologies available for scanning the structure of your child's heart.

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers your child several advantages:

• It doesn’t require surgery.
• It doesn’t use radiation.
• It gives a clearer, more detailed images than echocardiographies.
  

At UVA, we'll work with you before and after the scan to make sure you understand your child's results.

Outreach for Young Heart Patients

Our telemedicine technology and field clinics extend our expert services to underserved areas. Our doctors provide long-distance consultations and read patient echocardiograms Culpeper and Winchester.

Follow-up Care for Fragile Infants

In our Home Single Ventricle Surveillance Program, a nurse specialist closely follows babies with just a single heart ventricle when these babies are sent home before getting more surgical repair. The nurse checks in weekly with the infant's family, records the monitor readings and discusses any issues or concerns. 

Within this program, we participate in a national program to improve the daily care of children with complex congenital heart disease, a project of the Joint Council of Congenital Heart Disease.