Pediatric Cardiac Outcomes
The Willson Heart Center at Valley Children's Hospital is fully integrated with a complete range of services and a success rate that measures consistently, or in many cases better than, national benchmarks of reported outcomes, including our pediatric heart surgery outcomes. Our nationally recognized cardiac specialists are known for pioneering treatments and making the most acute and complex surgeries routine. The Center’s family-focused approach to bringing new techniques, comprehensive care and desired outcomes provides Central Valley families the expert pediatric heart care they are looking for closer to home.
Our pediatric cardiologists provide a range of services to diagnose and treat heart conditions and disease. Within that range, our team handles many kinds of pediatric heart conditions requiring surgery and have many years of expertise behind perfecting and personalizing procedures, including complex cases of pediatric open-heart surgery, to fit the needs of every patient. Our cardiac surgeons continuously assess and provide the safest approach for your child’s care at every turn.
Learn more about our outcomes and the different types of pediatric heart surgery in the following areas by clicking the links below.
The Willson Heart Center is a leader in the diagnosis and treatment of congenital and acquired pediatric heart conditions. From routine procedures to complex surgeries, the Center is at the forefront of bringing improved techniques and advanced cardiovascular care to kids in Central California.
Valley Children’s Hospital's Cardiac Catheterization program offers state-of-the-art pediatric diagnostic and interventional procedures for patients with congenital and acquired heart disease, which require treatment for conditions such as a narrowing or blockage of blood flow, including device closure of cardiac defects, balloon valvuloplasties, angioplasty, stent implantation and percutaneous valve implantations.
Extracorporeal life support (ECLS), also called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), is sometimes necessary in infants and children with serious heart or lung failure to provide temporary life support while medical and surgical therapies are given time to potentially improve the patient’s organ function. Compared to other ELSO centers caring for critically ill infants and children, survival outcomes at Valley Children’s Hospital for cardiac ECMO patients are excellent. Our complication rates for this complex treatment are much less than the average of other ELSO ECMO centers, meaning that we are often able to save the lives of infants and children that would otherwise be lost.
Valley Children’s offers a broad spectrum of non-invasive diagnostic services from pre-birth to young adult patients. The Willson Heart Center team conducts diagnostic perinatal testing in collaboration with our Maternal Fetal Center. Together, we offer urgent and elective fetal echocardiograms in pregnancies as early as 16 weeks gestation to screen for fetal cardiovascular anomalies.