When Your Child Needs a Heart Procedure

“There’s something wrong with your child’s heart.” Those words are hard to hear, but finding the right pediatric heart center for a heart surgery or other heart procedure goes a long way in giving your child the best chance for a healthy life.

How to choose a heart care team that’s right for you and your child

• Talk to people you trust. Start by asking your child’s doctor where he or she recommends you seek heart treatment. Ask family members about where they’ve had good care. Connect with other families who’ve been on this journey.
• Find the medical center that has the most experienced pediatric heart surgeons and interventional cardiologists. The volume of heart surgeries, cardiac catheterizations, and/or electrophysiology (EP)/arrhythmia procedures performed is a good measure of predicting results.
• Review the hospital’s track record. Looking at the overall success rates for pediatric heart procedures can be helpful in deciding where you want to get care for your child.

The pediatric heart surgeons at Betty Irene Moore Children’s Heart Center at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford successfully treat some of the most critically ill children—including unborn infants, premature infants, and teens—in the country and the world. Performing more than 500 heart surgeries each year (significantly more than at other children’s hospitals in the country), our subspecialty programs and renowned experts draw families seeking the best possible care for their children.

Our pediatric heart surgeons at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health have more than 300 combined years of experience and are specialized in a range of heart conditions and treatments, from routine to complex, including pulmonary artery reconstruction, coronary anomalies repairs (e.g. AAOCA), heart transplantation, and single ventricle management. And even though our pediatric heart surgeons treat the most complex cases, our patients’ lengths of stay are shorter for the majority of benchmark heart surgeries than of other peer hospitals nationwide, and our overall survival rate is impressive, higher than 95%.

If your child requires a different type of heart procedure, such as a cardiac catheterization and/or arrhythmia procedure, he or she will be in good hands with our interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists. They treat a high volume of patients with a variety of heart conditions, many very complex, which helps them to deepen their expertise and provide our young patients with great outcomes.

The Packard Children’s Hospital cardiology and heart surgery programs have been nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report consistently over the last 10 years. In addition, we’re proud to share our hospital’s results in surgery and related areas with respected health care organizations.

Learn more about why thousands of families choose us for the advanced heart care their children need and what we can do for your family.

Stanford Children’s pediatric heart surgery volumes and outcomes

The graphics below provide a good understanding of our most recent pediatric heart surgery achievements and outcomes as reported and validated by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), the organization that tracks the heart care outcomes of all key pediatric hospitals nationwide.

Our heart surgery team is nationally and internationally recognized for treating pediatric patients who are affected by some of the rarest and most complex heart conditions. These types of heart surgeries are not performed at many other hospitals nationwide/not in the same way or in the volumes we do at Moore Children's Heart Center. For this reason, these outcomes may not be entirely reflected in the data below. We are known for performing complex and successful heart procedures such as unifocalization for ToF with pulmonary atresia and MAPCAs, repairs of peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis, anomalous aortic origin of a coronary artery (AAOCA), heart transplantation, and more.

Families travel to Packard Children’s Hospital from all over the country and the world to seek care for their children’s heart needs.

Patients traveling to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford for pediatric heart care 2021-2025

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From 2021 through 2025, the Betty Irene Moore’s Children’s Heart Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford performed more than 2,800 pediatric heart surgeries. At other hospitals across the country, that number was an average of 1,226.

Medical teams who perform a higher number of pediatric heart surgeries are better equipped to care for your child, as they see a wider range of heart problems, and they are more experienced than pediatric heart surgeons who perform only a handful of procedures per year.

Volume of heart surgeries performed 2021-2025

 Higher is better

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Additionally, we've performed 78 heart transplants between July 2021-June 2025.

At Packard Children’s Hospital, we’ve performed a significant number of heart surgeries for these 10 childhood heart conditions. These procedures are referred to as benchmark operations, meaning that surgical centers use them for making comparisons.

Volume of heart surgery by specific surgery type 2021–2025

 Higher is better

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The overall pediatric heart surgery survival rate at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford was close to the national average for 2021–2025.

While this may not seem impressive at first glance, it truly is when you consider that we tackle the hardest, most complex, and rarest heart cases sent to us by other pediatric heart centers across the nation and the world. Our focus isn’t on taking only those children for whom we know we can achieve an excellent heart outcome; it is on giving every child a chance at life or a better life, no matter how impossible their heart condition seems.

Overall survival rate following heart surgery 2021–2025

 Higher is better

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And in the chart below, you can see that the Packard Children’s pediatric heart surgery survival rates were in general comparable to the national averages for the 10 benchmark pediatric heart surgeries.

Survival rate for types of heart surgery 2021–2025

 Higher is better

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Our survival rate for heart transplantation was 97.44% between June 2021-July 2025.

At Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, we treat some of the most complex and rarest forms of pediatric heart disease. According to the STAT (Society of Thoracic Surgery Congenital Heart Surgery Database) score, 38% of cardiac procedures performed at Packard Children's from July 2021 through June 2025 were classified as having a mortality risk in category 3 or higher.

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The mortality risk categories range from 1 to 5. Procedures associated with lowest mortality rates are in Category 1, and procedures associated with highest mortality rates are in Category 5.

Stanford Children’s arrhythmia procedures volumes

The following graphics provide a good understanding of our recent achievements in treating arrhythmia in children.

At Packard Children’s, we perform arrhythmia diagnostics and procedures for children of all ages who come to us with various types of arrhythmia.

As shown in the chart below, we consistently perform a high number of electrophysiology studies (arrhythmia diagnostics) and arrhythmia procedures—ablations and device implantations—each year.

Arrhythmia procedures volume by type 2021–2025

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Stanford Children’s cardiac catheterization volumes

At Stanford Medicine Children’s Health’s Betty Irene Moore Children’s Heart Center, we perform an extremely high volume of cardiac catheterizations, establishing us as one of the leading pediatric heart centers in the country.

We perform cardiac catheterizations in children of all ages, including premature infants and teens, for a wide range of heart conditions.

We are pleased to offer all types of catheter interventions at our Betty Irene Moore Children’s Heart Center. We use the latest interventional cardiology devices—including new innovations discovered through research, clinical trials, and/or collaborations with other organizations—to provide your child with the most advanced heart care and best possible outcome.

Catheterizations volume 2025

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Getting treatment

• Plan for your child’s birth. If you are expecting a baby who requires heart care, an interdisciplinary team will partner with you and your obstetrician to ensure that your child starts strong. Members of this team include pediatric cardiologists, pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons, high-risk obstetricians, neonatologists and genetic counselors. If your child will require a procedure shortly after birth, we recommend you deliver your baby at our hospital so that every necessary resource is available.
• Learn about the procedure your child will have in advance, so you’ll know what to expect afterward. Activity level, appetite, and growth should eventually return to normal after surgery. While rare, the most common complications after surgery include bleeding, irregular heartbeat, difficulty with feeding, and infection. We have processes and tools in place to help address these complications.
• Follow your child's heart through the hospital. Every child is different. Don’t be alarmed if your child skips one of these steps or spends the entire stay in one unit.
  • After birth, babies will spend some time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) getting ready for surgery.
  • All children (from babies to teenagers) will likely be moved to the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit after their surgery.
  • Later, they will probably go to the Acute Care Cardiology Unit.
• Ask questions at every stage and participate in the medical team’s daily rounds, at which time your child’s progress is reviewed. In addition to the medical team, numerous staff members can offer information, support, and advice. They include case managers, chaplains, child life specialists, child psychiatrists, dietitians, financial counselors, interpreters, rehab specialists, schoolteachers and social workers.
• Bond with your child. For all children but especially for babies, holding, cuddling, and stroking them are vital to creating a relationship with them. We will do our best to enable you to provide comforting touch, and to speak to your child often, when holding is not possible. Some children will be too fragile to be held before or immediately after surgery.

Going home

Your care team will work with you to decide when is the right time for your child to go home, based on his or her health. There’s no one magic number for that date, but at Packard Children’s Hospital we’re proud of our efforts to get your child home as quickly as possible.

Our patients spend fewer days in the hospital from the time of surgery until discharge for the majority of benchmark pediatric heart surgeries than the national average. This chart shows the median number of days spent in the hospital from the time of surgery until discharge for these surgical procedures. Since interventional cardiology procedures are less invasive, they typically do not require a significant hospital stay.

Typical days spent in the hospital following heart surgery 2021-2025

Lower is better 

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Our length of stay for pediatric heart transplant patients was 33 days between July 2021-June 2025.

Follow-up care and beyond

After your child’s surgery, your physician will give a progress report to your child's cardiologist.

• The team will arrange for an office visit with your child’s doctor to occur after you take her home.
• As your child gets older, we’ll work with you to ensure a smooth transition from childhood to adult heart care.
• Our Adult Congenital Heart Program provides a unique approach to care with a team of doctors who specialize in caring for adolescents and adults with congenital heart disease.

Learn more

Find out about some of the advanced pediatric heart treatments and/or procedures we perform at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and why we may be the best place for care for your child. Our pediatric heart surgeons and cardiologists are standing by to answer your questions.

Pulmonary artery reconstruction | Heart transplant | Single ventricle treatment | Congenital coronary anomalies