Heart Surgery Program
Our surgical team has expertise in all aspects of surgical care for children and young adults with congenital heart and lung defects. Surgery is performed by a pediatric cardiology or cardiovascular surgeon with vast experience in your child’s condition. Our surgeons also use state-of-the-art equipment, operating rooms and approaches to surgery that provides patients with a safe and efficient pathway to recovery and rehabilitation.
This year, the Phoenix Children's Heart Center will complete more than 500 heart surgeries that range from correcting a defect in a newborn to transplanting a new heart into a teenager. Our surgeons use state-of-the-art equipment, operating rooms and approaches to surgery that provide patients with a safe and efficient pathway to recovery and rehabilitation. Our team also uses the most advanced techniques, such as selective perfusion, to minimize the potential risks associated with neonatal surgery and to optimize outcomes.
After surgery, the expert team in our Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) will care for your child. The CVICU is on the fifth floor and is dedicated solely to our heart patients. This helps ensure the best possible outcome for your child. Plus, patients are followed in the region's only single ventricle surveillance program, which continuously monitors patients to ensure continued growth and development.
The Heart Surgery Program at Phoenix Children’s Hospital is considered a high volume program as we perform more than 250 cardiac surgery operations each year. Research studies support that there are less patient deaths following heart surgery in programs that perform higher numbers of operations on highly complex patients as compared to low volume programs.
The Heart Center continues to demonstrate excellent results in terms of survival rates and complication rates through the collaborative efforts of this multidisciplinary team. Our surgeons have one of the region's largest and most successful programs for neonatal heart surgery, with experience in complex procedures including the Norwood procedure for hypoplastic left heart syndrome and the arterial switch procedure for transposition of the great arteries. Results exceed national benchmarks, and patients benefit from a system that provides comprehensive prenatal, peri-operative and long-term care.
Additional Resources
- Want a Second Opinion? — Chat, call, or complete this form to request a second opinion appointment.
- Your Child's Hospital Stay — Learn more about our campus services and what you can do to prepare for your visit.
Related Specialties
Our nationally recognized physicians are dedicated to focusing on your child's unique needs in the following specialties: