Heart Partners

Collaboration creates “homegrown” pediatric cardiac surgery program

The parents of most newborns look forward to milestones like first smiles and the first time sleeping through the night.

Jennifer and Jared Chance of Brandon celebrated other more serious milestones in their daughter’s infancy.

Laney Chance was born without a coronary artery, making her little body unable to get the oxygen it needed.

So instead of anticipating the usual events in a newborn’s life, the Chances spent a week in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children.

They learned that Laney would need open-heart surgery to repair the defect and flew to another state to have that operation – all before Laney was 3 months old.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Jennifer. “You ask the normal questions, like ‘Why is this happening to us?’”

The Chance family traveled to Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for Dr. Richard Jonas, one of the world’s leading pediatric heart surgeons, to perform Laney’s surgery. The surgery would mark the beginning of a partnership between Children’s National and Batson Hospital, which has plans to develop its own comprehensive pediatric heart surgery program.

Jonas, chief of cardiac surgery at Children’s National and co-director of the Children’s National Heart Institute, is guiding the effort, along with an internationally respected cardiovascular surgery team from Children’s National.

Since last fall, Jonas and his team have made monthly visits to Batson Hospital, where they have operated on 24 patients. The most complex cases have been transported to Children’s National, where 37 children, including Laney, have undergone surgery.

Jennifer says that while they had a great experience at Children’s National, she is excited about the partnership.

“I think that it’s going to make it a lot easier on families who have to go through this in the future,” Laney’s mother said.

In addition to performing operations, Jonas and his team will guide the recruitment and development of a surgical team for Batson Hospital. Complex pediatric heart surgeries require highly skilled, multidisciplinary teams, including at least two pediatric cardiac surgeons, as well as cardiologists, nurse practitioners, intensivists and pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists specializing in the diagnosis and management of children with congenital heart defects.

“What we hope we bring to the table is how to strengthen the entire team, improve communication and, most importantly, point out the resources essential to a successful team,” Jonas said.

At one time, Batson Hospital had a robust pediatric heart surgery program, but a gradual loss of key team members, coupled with resource constraints, forced the hospital to refer patients to out-of-state centers, including Children’s National.

According to Dr. Owen B. Evans, professor and chairman of pediatrics, the challenge of recruiting and maintaining these surgical teams has resulted in a trend toward consolidation and regionalization. Only a few hospitals nationwide perform the volume of operations needed to maintain a viable pediatric heart surgery program.

In Mississippi, about 250 children need surgery each year, but authorities agree that a yearly minimum of 100 operations would sustain a program.

“Partnering with Children’s National will expedite the process of making Batson Hospital a regional center for open-heart surgery and will enable our children to receive state-of-the-art care in Mississippi,” Evans said.

Ultimately, the number of pediatric heart cases performed in-house will exceed the number sent to Children’s National, and Batson Hospital will become a regional center for pediatric heart surgery, performing at least 150 operations each year.

“I’m very optimistic about how the program is coming together,” Jonas said.

In preparing to re-establish its program, Batson Hospital officials conducted an extensive review of the country’s top-rated programs and chose Children’s National as a partner.

Weighing heavily in the decision was the opportunity to join forces with Jonas, who has performed thousands of operations on children’s hearts no larger than walnuts. His advocacy for early intervention in heart defects is one reason Laney’s surgery came so early in her young life.

Laney will be monitored for the rest of her life because she is likely to need another surgery in years to come.

Knowing that future surgery will be in capable hands and closer to home,the Chances now look forward to a happier milestone:Laney’s first birthday.

-Jen Hospodor

2009-03-31 00:00:00 18878