Working with You to Provide Superior Cardiac Care
Through our Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) Program, our goal is to work with you to provide superior cardiac care for your adult patients with congenital heart disease. Because of our broad and extensive experience in treating patients with ACHD, we are able to provide treatments with reduced length of stay and reduced morbidities.
You’ll find a collaborative partner in the care for your patients when you choose to work with us.
> Contact us for more information on referrals, consultations and second opinions
Specialized Training
Like in other fields of medicine, training in ACHD is critical. It enables specialists to provide better care, detect problems in a timely manner, and can help save many lives. Our team brings the latest assessment and treatment options to our patients. Our congenital heart specialists have experience in the complex procedures that an ACHD patient may have had in childhood. They have the expertise to review scans, understand the physiology, determine proper tests, and conduct specialized procedures based on surgeries and repairs done in childhood.
Shared Care
Our goal is to work with the healthcare providers outside of Cincinnati Children’s our patients already see now. We team with other doctors—from adult cardiologists to primary care physicians to OB/GYNs and other specialists—and make decisions together with you and the patient. This approach means our patients benefit from the care of a doctor who knows them well, and specialists who know CHD well.
- We use a co-management model that allows our team to address the specialized congenital heart disease, while our patients’ other medical issues continue to be followed by the referring physician or primary care provider.
- Our team keeps in close communication with referring physicians and primary care providers to ensure the best possible care.
- After an ACHD intervention, patients will, as is appropriate, return to our center for follow-up care, and we will continue to partner with their primary care providers.
Ensuring Excellence in Inpatient Care
For inpatient care, we partner with the University of Cincinnati, which provides exemplary consultation and support for other medical ailments during our patients’ hospital stays.
Cardiac Catheterization Program
Our state-of-the-art Hybrid Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory allows us to provide the best and safest care to patients with complex cardiac conditions, while minimizing the total number of procedures or interventions they may require. This lab allows us to perform a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, including simultaneous surgery and catheterization procedures.
Global Access
We hold outreach ACHD clinics in collaboration with partner institutions. Every week our team collaborates with these institutions and other groups using robust telemedicine links. Our Center for Telehealth allows us to share our expertise anywhere in the world, and to collaborate on medical and surgical planning. We offer the latest equipment for connecting pediatric specialists here with patients and colleagues around the globe.
Resources for ACHD Healthcare Professionals
ACHD Learning Center Site
The ACHD e-Learning Center is a joint development maintained by Cincinnati Children’s Heart Institute and the International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease.
The site features Adult Congenital Heart Defect resources, learning modules, a fellows’ testing center and journal articles. Access to material is free.
There are two main audiences for this material:
- Healthcare professionals caring for adult patients with congenital heart defects – for this community we would like this site to be the first port of call to identify and access high-quality ACHD educational resources on the Internet.
- Cardiology trainees and cardiologists interested in learning more about adult patients with congenital heart defects – for this community we have established basic ACHD teaching modules that could be used either by the trainees themselves or by their teachers and training program directors.
CHiP Network
The Congenital Heart International Professional’s Network (CHiP) provides a single global list of all CHD-interested professionals the ability to:
- Connect pediatric and adult CHD-interested professionals to events, conferences, research opportunities and employment
- Increase education and provider awareness of new developments in the field
- Bring the pediatric and adult congenital heart communities into closer contact
- Offer a communication tool for critical issues
CHiP is an all-inclusive network and is comprised of everyone who considers themselves a congenital heart professional or administrator, from pediatric cardiologists and ACHD cardiologists, to RNs and social workers.
