Heart Care for Children

All day, every day, the amazing heart keeps blood pumping, keeps oxygen circulating, keeps your child alive, keeps you alive. You may take its presence for granted, but when its steady beat or other important function misses a step, everything in your and your child’s body and life can change in an instant.

Top-Quality Pediatric Heart Care Close to Home

That’s when you want expert heart care from skilled, experienced and compassionate pediatric cardiology professionals and cardiovascular specialists at OU Health who deliver exceptional heart and vascular care for children and adults.

And that’s when you want to choose child- and family-centered care from the Children’s Heart Center at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health in Oklahoma City or OU Health Physicians Pediatric Cardiology in Tulsa.

Focused on Congenital Conditions & Heart Rhythm Care

With access to more than 150 highly skilled physicians, surgeons, nurses and specialists in multiple complementary professional disciplines who focus on caring for the smallest hearts and the widest range of complex congenital conditions, you benefit from the most comprehensive methods available in Oklahoma. OU Health pediatric cardiology experts work to identify and correct an extensive array of heart conditions, including acquired heart disease, heart murmurs and arrhythmias in people of all ages.

Oklahoma’s Center for Expert Children’s Heart Care

Explore services available to you and your child, including:

• Conditions we treat – Get expert individualized care to address your/your child’s specific heart condition, whether common or complex
• Diagnostic tests and visits – Learn what to expect during your child’s clinic visits and gain access to the full spectrum of diagnostic tests and procedures ranging from blood and laboratory services, EKG and event monitoring to advanced cardiovascular imaging options such as cardiac CT and MRI scans, cardiac catheterization, echocardiogram and more
• Heart treatments and programs – Take advantage of a wide range of services for people of all ages living with a heart-related issue or a congenital heart condition, including our adult congenital heart disease program, as well as options for:
  • Fetal heart care
  • Heart rhythm management
  • Interventional cardiology
  • Cardiovascular perfusion and more
• Children's Heart Surgery – Rely on the experienced pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons at OU Health for expert care of the tiniest hearts using the latest advanced surgical technologies and minimally invasive techniques
• Pediatric cardiac anesthesia – Benefit from support for children's heart surgery provided by Oklahoma's only fellowship-trained pediatric anesthesiologists
• Pediatric cardiac critical care – Trust the skilled pediatric specialists and highly trained pediatric cardiac nursing team at Oklahoma's only pediatric cardiac critical care unit and Level 1 trauma center
• Heart patient and family support – Find compassionate care, an uplifting environment and support for your child and family through diverse options, including case management, social services, child life specialists, nurse navigation, language translation, school programs, financial assistance, spiritual support and the specialized Hearts at Home program that teaches successful parent-care strategies for single ventricle surgery children

Through the forward-thinking approach to pediatric cardiovascular care and treatment at OU Health, you benefit from innovative technologies, progressive techniques, extensive research and developments from clinical trials that often make the most advanced options available to you and your child before they become widely available.

Appointments for Pediatric Heart Care

As a new patient at the Children’s Heart Center, you or your child need a referral from your primary care doctor to one of our subspecialty providers. If you’re enrolled in a managed care insurance plan, you may need to supply authorization from your insurance carrier and your primary care physician to receive services from OU Health. You must send all referral and authorization forms to Children’s Heart Center before your appointment.

When you become an established clinic patient, your clinic staff team members will schedule any follow-up or return appointments during the check-out process of your current visit. They will contact you later to set up long-term follow-up appointments due in six months or more.

Learn what to expect during your child’s clinic visits.

Your Child’s Heart Care Team

During the time you and your child spend at the Children’s Heart Center, you’ll work with a variety of talented, compassionate and highly trained experts – doctors, nurses and staff who provide specialized pediatric services to diagnose and treat your child’s specific condition.

Your child’s heart and vascular care team may include pediatric cardiologists, pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons, pediatric cardiac anesthesiologists, pediatric critical care specialists and pediatric cardiac nurses, as well as child life specialists, social workers, therapists and healthcare professionals from many disciplines.

You benefit from collaborating with an experienced pediatric cardiovascular team that directly involves you and your family in treatment decisions, also pays close attention to your family’s nonmedical needs and:

• Performs more than 450 complex cardiothoracic surgeries each year
• Uses the latest advanced technologies, including minimally invasive procedures that help speed healing and recovery
• Brings together specialists from all departments to coordinate and implement new and innovative treatments for children’s heart and vascular conditions
• Cares for the tiniest hearts through our extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) program, a nationally designated ECMO Center of Excellence
• Conducts groundbreaking research on hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) with nationally renowned colleagues from across the United States and brings new methods for prevention, diagnosis and treatment to your care through participation in locally available clinical trials
• Teaches the physicians of tomorrow for the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, which also gives you access to benchmark practice standards, innovative care and treatment methods, advanced technology and world-class research
• Puts smiles on the faces of children and families during more than 10,000 outpatient visits each year

Referring Physicians
Get expert pediatric cardiac and vascular subspecialty care for your patients at OU Health. Make online Children’s Heart Center referrals and find downloadable referral forms, as well as direct phone numbers to call for assistance with questions about pediatric cardiology, pediatric cardiothoracic surgery or pediatric echo lab services.