Heart Center Coordination Program 

Having a child who requires a heart surgery or interventional cardiac catheterization procedure for a complex heart condition is often overwhelming for parents and families. Receiving this type of care from our Betty Irene Moore Children’s Heart Center team at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health can involve multiple appointments, various specialists with expertise in your child’s specific heart condition, and ongoing tests and images.

Our Heart Center Coordination team provides you and your family with a cardiac nurse navigator to guide you every step of the way through your child’s care journey. In this way, we provide an enhanced and convenient heart care experience for your child with complex heart procedure needs.

Your nurse coordinator can support you in the following ways:

• Answering questions you may have about your child’s heart care journey and treatment plan.
• Being the point of contact between your family and your child’s medical care team to ensure that everyone is informed of important aspects of your child’s care.
• Grouping appointments, tests, and various procedures (not only heart-related) for convenience and to minimize demands on your child, such as repeated anesthesia or blood draws.
• Being a knowledgeable go-to person when your child is ill to help determine the best next step for your child and family.

Currently, the Heart Center Coordination Program supports select patients with complex heart needs such as those listed below.

Please ask your child’s treating heart doctor if you’d like to learn more about our Heart Center Coordination Program.

How the Heart Center Coordination Program supports referring physicians

To support you, our referring physicians, our Heart Center Coordination cardiac nurse navigators become your single point of contact to manage complex case coordination and keep you informed as your patient with heart disease moves through our system during a heart surgery or procedure. In this way, we ensure optimized communications with you and your patient/their family for exceptional care satisfaction.

The patients we care for in the Heart Center Coordination Program

Our Heart Center Coordination team currently provides support to the pediatric patients who are receiving a complicated heart surgery or an interventional cardiology procedure within these programs:

• Pulmonary Artery Reconstruction Program.
• Center for Advanced Lung (CEAL) Therapies (for children with severe pulmonary hypertension and advanced lung disease).
• Alagille Syndrome Program (we offer care navigation support to Alagille syndrome pediatric patients with pulmonary hypertension).
• Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program (for children with pulmonary vascular disease/ pulmonary hypertension).
• Complex Biventricular Reconstruction Program.
• Adult Congenital Heart Program.
• Bloodless Cardiac Surgery Program.
• Electrophysiology and Arrhythmia (supporting patients with complex needs).
• Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization and Interventional Cardiology.
• Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery.

If you are a parent or a referring physician who has a child followed by the Stanford Children’s programs above, ask your child’s or partner cardiologist at Stanford Children’s about our Heart Center Coordination Program.