The Heart Center at Primary Children’s Hospital believes that number is far too high. We strongly adhere to the hospital’s mission to put "The Child First and Always." That’s why we’re continually refining our electrophysiology services and pushing for innovative treatments that are safer, less invasive, and reduce harmful side effects.

Our Heart Center's focus on eliminating inappropriate shocks in ICD patients has centered on fine-tuning and reprogramming each patient’s ICD system to accept more mildly abnormal patterns. Our goal is that patients do not receive shocks unless they’re experiencing a life-threatening situation. The results have been impressive. We have trimmed the number of inappropriate shocks in ICD patients to 10%, providing our patients with peace of mind and keeping them out of harm’s way.

Reducing Radiation

Reducing our patients’ exposure to radiation is another important focus of our electrophysiology services. By using sophisticated 3D virtual reality cardiac mapping technology to detect electrical abnormalities in the heart, the Heart Center has been able perform more than half of our cardiac ablations without exposing the patient to any radiation. And we’re striving to be even better.

GPS Guided Imaging

The Heart Center recently invested in a state-of-the-art GPS guided imaging system. The system uses the latest technology to provide the most advanced imaging available to guide heart devices into place without the need of X-rays. The Heart Center is the first pediatric lab in the country to put this GPS guided system to work!

Cryoablations

The Heart Center is also a strong proponent of cryoablations for patients with arrhythmias. Whenever possible, we use the safer freeze technique of cryoablation instead of heat to correct the abnormal nerves that cause elevated heartbeats in our patients. Since the Heart Center started performing cryoablations more than 10 years ago, there have been zero cases of reported damage—none. And the Heart Center has had no unintentional heart block in the last ten years of ablations and no infections in over three years.

ICD Patient Conference

Of course, our dedication to our patients’ health goes beyond the physical. We’re also dedicated to patients’ mental and emotional well-being. To that end, we started the first ICD patient conference in the West. The inaugural conference was held in September of 2013 and brought together patients with defibrillators in a fun and informative full-day event.

For many patients, the conference was their first time meeting another person with a defibrillator, so the event provided an invaluable forum for discussing the challenges of living with an ICD. Patients were able to bolster one another and build valuable support networks.