Published: August 18, 2017 | Updated: January 9, 2020
The Pediatric Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Program at Norton Children’s Heart Center offers children of Kentucky and Southern Indiana a place to turn for state-of-the-art treatment close to home.
The comprehensive program is the only one of its kind in the state. It provides diagnostic services including genetic evaluation and cardiac catheterization. For children with end-stage heart failure, the program also provides ventricular assist device implantation (surgically placed heart pumps) and heart transplantation.
Norton Children’s Hospital has a long history of providing cutting-edge care for children with heart failure. It was the nation’s second site of a newborn heart transplant in 1986. Since that time, the hospital has performed more than 50 heart transplants.
For more information about the Pediatric Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Program, call (502) 629-2929.
Since mid-2015, the heart center has implanted seven mechanical heart pumps in children who went on to receive heart transplants. The center has performed 10 heart transplants total in that time.
“Caring for children with advanced heart failure goes way beyond doctors. They require a team of skilled and dedicated nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, social workers, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists, and child life specialists,” said Joshua Sparks, M.D., pediatric cardiologist with University of Louisville Physicians and medical director, Pediatric Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Program, Norton Children’s Hospital. “We have all that and more.”
The heart center extends its reach throughout the region through 15 outreach clinics and 29 tele-echocardiography sites. Those offices are staffed by providers from UofL Physicians – Pediatric Cardiology and Pediatric HeartCare Partners. Together, these clinics have connected nearly 270 patients to the program.