Kentucky Children's Heart Center Opens
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 28, 2008) − UK HealthCare's Kentucky Children's Hospital
recently established the Kentucky Children's Heart Center. The full-service center provides
inpatient and outpatient diagnostic and treatment services for children with congenital or
acquired heart disease. Treatment also encompasses patients who have advanced into adulthood,
providing the consistency of comprehensive care important to favorable long-term
outcomes.
Kentucky Children’s Heart Center is co-directed by pediatric cardiology chief Dr. Louis Bezold and Dr. Mark Plunkett, chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery. Both are associate professors in the UK College of Medicine.
“Through our cardiology and cardiac surgery departments, we’re able to take care of any child with any heart defect, regardless of its complexity," Bezold said. “We also see adults who have had congenital heart disease since childhood. This is a very rapidly growing population, and many of these patients come back for follow-up operations."
With the use of leading-edge technologies, the Kentucky Children's Heart Center team can identify virtually all complex congenital heart diseases in fetuses as young as 18-20 weeks. This information helps the physician team plan the remainder of the mother’s pregnancy and follow-up, including immediate intervention if necessary.
"A lot of heart defects are discovered early in the pregnancy, so we can plan a course of action for when the baby is going to deliver," Plunkett said. "In the old days, we talked to the parents after the baby was born; now we’re talking to pregnant moms and performing procedures sometimes within days of birth -- a lot within the first week or two of life.”
Digital communication links to several outside hospitals enable Kentucky Children’s Heart Center specialists to read echocardiograms from remote nurseries and help onsite medical teams manage patients. The UK team also provides echocardiography training for sonographers at Kentucky hospitals.
"We provide them the same level of service as we provide our physicians and patients in-house," Bezold said. "They get same-day feedback or immediate feedback if it’s an urgent case.”
"We are especially pleased with one of new major initiatives in the Kentucky Children's Heart Center," said Dr. Tim Bricker, professor and chair of pediatrics, UK College of Medicine and physician-in-chief of Kentucky Children's Hospital. "Along with other health professionals, they form the only hospital in the eastern half of Kentucky that provides a full range of pediatric heart services."
Kentucky Children’s Heart Center has subspecialty coverage in a wide range of areas including: arrhythmia detection; cardiac catheterization and interventions; congenital and acquired heart disease; fetal-perinatal cardiology. Non-invasive treatments are available, including echocardiography (transthoracic, transesophageal, fetal); electrocardiography; exercise-stress testing; rhythm disturbances; pacemaker clinic; invasive electrophysiological study and ablation of abnormal electrical pathways; pulmonary hypertension; preventive cardiology; and cardiomyopathy. Services will eventually expand to include pediatric heart transplants for Kentucky Children's Hospital patients.
Kentucky Children’s Heart Center is co-directed by pediatric cardiology chief Dr. Louis Bezold and Dr. Mark Plunkett, chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery. Both are associate professors in the UK College of Medicine.
“Through our cardiology and cardiac surgery departments, we’re able to take care of any child with any heart defect, regardless of its complexity," Bezold said. “We also see adults who have had congenital heart disease since childhood. This is a very rapidly growing population, and many of these patients come back for follow-up operations."
With the use of leading-edge technologies, the Kentucky Children's Heart Center team can identify virtually all complex congenital heart diseases in fetuses as young as 18-20 weeks. This information helps the physician team plan the remainder of the mother’s pregnancy and follow-up, including immediate intervention if necessary.
"A lot of heart defects are discovered early in the pregnancy, so we can plan a course of action for when the baby is going to deliver," Plunkett said. "In the old days, we talked to the parents after the baby was born; now we’re talking to pregnant moms and performing procedures sometimes within days of birth -- a lot within the first week or two of life.”
Digital communication links to several outside hospitals enable Kentucky Children’s Heart Center specialists to read echocardiograms from remote nurseries and help onsite medical teams manage patients. The UK team also provides echocardiography training for sonographers at Kentucky hospitals.
"We provide them the same level of service as we provide our physicians and patients in-house," Bezold said. "They get same-day feedback or immediate feedback if it’s an urgent case.”
"We are especially pleased with one of new major initiatives in the Kentucky Children's Heart Center," said Dr. Tim Bricker, professor and chair of pediatrics, UK College of Medicine and physician-in-chief of Kentucky Children's Hospital. "Along with other health professionals, they form the only hospital in the eastern half of Kentucky that provides a full range of pediatric heart services."
Kentucky Children’s Heart Center has subspecialty coverage in a wide range of areas including: arrhythmia detection; cardiac catheterization and interventions; congenital and acquired heart disease; fetal-perinatal cardiology. Non-invasive treatments are available, including echocardiography (transthoracic, transesophageal, fetal); electrocardiography; exercise-stress testing; rhythm disturbances; pacemaker clinic; invasive electrophysiological study and ablation of abnormal electrical pathways; pulmonary hypertension; preventive cardiology; and cardiomyopathy. Services will eventually expand to include pediatric heart transplants for Kentucky Children's Hospital patients.