What Factors Will You Consider In Choosing a Hospital For Your Child's Congenital Heart Disease?

Congenital heart diseases are most common birth defects. If your child is diagnosed with congenital heart disease, you feel like you are entering a strange and unfamiliar territory. Instead of welcoming your newborn baby to a cosy and comfortable nursery at home, you are confined to a hospital till he gets cured.

Operating on a tiny organ with correspondingly small vessels requires highly specialized training, skills as well as experience. Even under pressure, you are required to decide which hospital to take your child for a potentially life-saving surgery. You are faced with multiple decisions related to your child’s life. To guide your family, you are required to choose a hospital with a highly-skilled pediatric cardiologist & pediatric surgeon.

It is crucial to find a hospital which has not only an excellent team of surgeons but also a good rapport. Dr. Dinesh Kumar Mittal, Senior Consultant & Head – CTVS, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, explains a few factors that you should consider while choosing a hospital for your child are:

Complexity of the Surgery

If there is a rare defect, you will need to take your child to a high-volume centre which has previously experienced that sort of anomaly. As per the Society of Thoracic Surgery (STS), there exist five levels of complexities for congenital heart diseases. The advanced the level of complexity, the more difficult is to treat the heart defect. So a rare anomaly should be operated in a high-volume centre, and by an experienced surgeon.

Get Data About the Previous Surgeries

Pick a hospital that has a track record of treating multiple cases, including the complex ones. Multispecialty centres have a variety of surgeons and you should look at various surgeons within the same hospital to find the best fit for your child. It is crucial to enquire factors like the number of times a surgeon has performed the procedure along with the number of successful treatments in the surgeon’s tenure.

Ratings of the Hospital

The ratings of a hospital reasonably reflect the overall performance of treatment. It is always beneficial to take some time to research the surgeons and hospitals. It is essential to determine where a child will get the best treatment and care. We at Max Healthcare have come a long way in improving the health of children born with congenital heart defects.

Research the Whole Team

Pediatric heart surgery is a team effort. A dedicated pediatric heart surgery team consisting of an experienced heart surgeon, cardiologist &nurses and intensivist is definitely going to make a difference in the outcome of surgery as a whole.One should prefer such hospital (as Max ) which has such fully functional units.

Learn About the Baby’s Condition

The more you know about your baby’s condition, the better you can assess the cardiologists. One should go beyond a medical library search or web and speak to experts in the field. It is always crucial to ask in detail about the treatment options, possible complications, follow-up care, and what kinds of results to expect. Furthermore, one can talk to other parents whose child has gone through a heart surgery.

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide for the best medical team for your child. Making the critical choice about whom to trust with your child’s heart surgery is one of the hardest questions you ever face. It is essential for you to carefully consider all above points and select a hospital with dedicated pediatric heart team for your childs' well being. We at Max Healthcare have such a dedicated and experienced surgeon: