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Last week, Dell Children’s Medical Center opened a new unit at the hospital, doubling the number of beds in the cardiac critical care unit from 24 to 48 beds.

The new unit will take over the space that was part of the pediatric intensive care unit, which was relocated after the fourth tower opened in November 2022.

The doubling of critical care units comes five years after the Texas Children’s and Congenital Heart Disease Center was launched. The center is a joint project between the hospital and UT Health Austin, a clinical division of the Dell School of Medicine.

The center currently performs more than 2,000 heart surgeries, including 30 heart transplants and all mechanical interventional procedures available, as well as partial heart transplants. Currently, babies delivered at hospitals are diagnosed with heart programs when they are still fetuses, and are taken to surgery immediately after birth.

“Their expertise forced us to expand,” Michael Wiggins, president of Dell Children’s, said of the heart team. “This is a milestone in our journey and our commitment to providing the highest level and most comprehensive cardiac care to Central Texas families.”

The program grew faster than anyone anticipated, reaching mechanical devices and heart transplants years before heart program director Dr. Charles Frazier Jr. had predicted.

“Five years ago, who would have thought that we would be here to open our 48th dedicated critical care bed for children, adults, patients and families with congenital heart disease?” Fraser said. said.

During the first five years of the cardiac program, Dell Children’s is surprising itself. where are you heading?

“Five years ago, none of us were here,” he said, pointing to the dozens of nurses, doctors and researchers gathered for Thursday’s opening ceremony.

He said this growth is “driven by the needs of patients and families.”

Patients come from all over Texas, neighboring states, and even Europe, South America, and Africa for heart care.

Because the center had outgrown its cardiac critical care unit, it was necessary to control the number of patients who could participate in the program. “We have to get beds,” said Dr. Chesney Castleberry, medical director of the heart failure, ventricular assist device, and transplant programs. In the future, she will be able to bring in more children as well as add more staff.

First Look: Inside the new Texas Children’s Hospital in Austin opening in February

The opening of the second unit will house patients with critical heart conditions in one space. The hospital had previously housed some seriously ill heart patients throughout the hospital as it outgrew its original ward, which opened in 2019. Fraser expects the new ward to be full within a month. He said the hospital plans to use the space in both the neonatal intensive care unit, which was also recently expanded, and the new pediatric intensive care unit, both of which are cardiac units, when they are full.

Ten of the beds in the new ward will be for children with heart failure, many of whom are awaiting heart transplants. Patients typically wait three to four months for their hearts to be listed, and those who are too unwell to stay at home are transferred to a hospital until the transplant can take place. With this in mind, Dell Children’s added showers to those rooms, allowing families to stay overnight with their children, and equipped them with pull-out couches as well as full bathrooms.

“This is their unit, this is their hospital, and we are lucky to be a part of their lives,” Fraser said.

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