Cincinnati Children’s accredited for adult congenital heart care
The Adolescent and Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) program was awarded accreditation by the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA), and is one of only a handful of programs in the nation to receive it.
The accreditation program is a critical landmark in providing adults living with congenital heart disease a means to find quality, specialized ACHD care and testing throughout the US, which can be a challenge.
There are now more than a million American adults with congenital heart defects. At least half of them should be seeing a congenital heart expert on a regular basis. Only 10 to 20 percent, however, receive appropriate surveillance to help them avoid complications.
“Patients who were treated for congenital heart disease need to remain under the expert care of cardiac specialists, trained in congenital heart disease, to ensure that their complex needs are met and that problems are addressed quickly and effectively,” says Gruschen Veldtman, MD, director, ACHD program. “Statistics show that if ACHD patients have heart surgery in non-specialist centers, their risk of death increases over three-fold. We offer patients a holistic approach, providing not only state-of-the-art medical and surgical care but also education and psychological support to help them enjoy the best possible outcomes throughout adolescence and adulthood.”
Accreditation will also provide a clear road map for providers to structure and build their ACHD programs under the auspices of ACHA as a patient advocacy organization.
