When you choose the Heart Center at Primary Children’s Hospital, you are choosing one of the best pediatric heart centers in the nation - a center that combines clinical excellence, cutting-edge innovation and compassionate care. Our formalized 31-patient Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) and Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) located near two cardiac operating rooms ensures smooth transfers of patients from surgery to intensive care and step-down care. In addition to seeing patients in Salt Lake City, we have 10 outreach clinics throughout the states of Utah, Idaho, and Alaska.

We feel confident that our multidisciplinary leadership structure, and moreover, our physical and virtual environments, position our team well to provide exceptional care to your child and family.  

During the past couple of years, we’ve:

• recruited national talent from a variety of top programs in pediatric cardiac critical care, pediatric cardiology, and pediatric cardiothoracic surgery
• focused efforts on outcomes, underscored by a 0.9% observed mortality in 2020 for all surgical cases
• solidified our leadership structure and, as a result, share a uniform excitement for building a top-performing center
• established a dedicated 15-bed Cardiac Care Unit with specialized caregivers to partner with our 16-bed Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, providing enhanced care focused on cardiac patients with 31 total Heart Center beds
• organized a nurse navigation/concierge program composed of two seasoned nurses who deliver increased communication with referring providers, and most importantly, dedicated concierge services to our visiting and out-of-state patients and families
• created a valve center of excellence with an outpatient cardiac valve clinic, leveraging a multidisciplinary clinical team to coordinate approaches and personalized to each child and family preferences
• completed final design and initiated construction of our hybrid OR suite
• published more than 265 manuscripts, 120 abstracts, and 26 book chapters, and given more than 150 presentations at regional, national, and international meetings

Multidisciplinary Care

More than 40 highly-skilled physicians work tirelessly to treat the most complex congenital heart conditions. They are supported by more than 300 staff members including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, cardiac sonographers, nurses, perfusionists, respiratory therapists, social workers, genetic counselors, child life specialists, and more. Collaboration and communication between these teams is essential, along with communication with families and referring physicians.

National Recognition & Accreditation

Primary Children's Hospital is nationally-ranked as a top children's hospital by U.S. News & World Report in nine specialties including Cardiology & Heart Surgery. The Heart Center is also currently ranked in the top ten for Best Children's Heart Care by Parent's Magazine, and our echo lab is accredited in transthoracic, transesophageal & fetal echocardiographic testing.

Research and Evidence-Based Care

Research plays a vital role in offering innovative care. Our research highlights include:

• 1 of 2 institutions nationwide that participates in all three major research consortia for National Institutes of Health and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
• 1 of 4 Cardiac Development Consortium sites
• 1 of 5 participants in the Pediatric Cardiac Genomes Consortium
• 1 of 9 facilities chosen as a core site of the Pediatric Heart Network 

Excellent Outcomes

We have some of the best survival outcomes in the country and get families out of the hospital sooner, which reduces stress on the family, improves care and lowers costs. Our cardiac survival rates outperform Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) national rates in 8 out of 10 benchmark procedures. Within our catherization lab, we have demonstrated superior outcomes with 50% less radiation and half the fluoroscopy time as compared to national benchmarks for transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement. Our 2020 post-operative cardiac arrest (adjusted and unadjusted) rates significantly better than all PC4 centers. Our medical and surgical complication rates are maintained among the lowest in the country (best 10%), including our cardiac arrest rates (crude and adjusted).

At least one week prior to your scheduled clinic visit, please be sure to have your or your child’s medical records faxed or mailed to the Pediatric Cardiology office from their referring physician’s office. This allows enough time for your records to be processed and reviewed in advance by your cardiologist.

Records can be mailed to:
Primary Children’s Outpatient Services
Pediatric Cardiology
81 N. Mario Capecchi Drive, 4th Floor
Salt Lake City, Utah 84113

Records can be faxed to (801) 213-7778.