Children's Heart Patient & Family Support

When you choose OU Health to care for your child's heart, you benefit from nationally ranked pediatric heart care specialists, advanced technology and the latest in pediatric treatments and services.

Support for Your Child & Family

At OU Health, you gain access to a wide range of services to support cardiac kids and families. With options designed to help everyone remain as engaged and optimistic as possible throughout your healthcare journey, you can take advantage of diverse patient and family support offerings such as:

Case Management and Social Services

Assists you and your doctor with the hospital discharge process to ensure a timely, safe transition that addresses continuing-care needs and additional resources for you and your family; provides trained social workers to assist everyone with psychological and social problems that can arise during a hospital stay with a chronically ill child.

Child Life Services

Uses therapeutic play to help your hospitalized child understand and remain calm throughout necessary medical procedures; Oklahoma’s largest program of its kind; Oklahoma Children's Hospital’s Child Life specialists help you understand the steps of treatment, teach your child therapeutic methods of play, offer support to keep spirits and hopes high throughout hospitalization.

Nurse Navigation

Acts as your patient advocate to guide you and your family through processes involved in diagnosis and treatment; serves as communication expert for everyone involved to assure understanding for all aspects of care and treatment; helps answer questions and foster collaboration as a team.

School Programs

Provides onsite academic services and liaison with your child’s school during extended hospital stays to ensure no loss of valuable learning time; sends letters of attendance, facilitates schoolwork collection, offers tutoring; coordinates support and necessary accommodations when your child returns to the classroom; for information, call (405) 271-4870.

Language Translation

Offers sincere, honest, culturally aware communication and interpretation for Spanish, sign language and dozens of others in person and through interpretation technology.

Financial Assistance Services

Provides expert counseling services for financial arrangements before surgery or other procedures; experts available Monday through Friday 9 a.m. through 4 p.m.; learn more about OU Health’s financial assistance programs.

Spiritual Care

Assists with stress and anxiety that often accompanies hospital admission or healthcare employment; provided by a Spiritual Care team of onsite chaplains; call (405) 271-5758 or after hours at (405) 271-5656.

Gift Shop

Offers everything from personal essentials to snacks and gifts for all ages; operated by volunteers; proceeds benefit local nursing scholarships; open Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Read more about our Gift Shop.

Dining

Offers multiple onsite options at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital Heart Center for sit-down meals and to-go food selections; learn more about Dining at OU Health.

Hearts at Home Follow-Up Care

Delivers follow-up care between the first and second surgeries for single ventricle and other complex congenital cardiac anomalies. Through the Hearts at Home program, specialists from Oklahoma Children’s Hospital Heart Center teach you successful in-home parent-care strategies that help you learn to watch, track, encourage and enjoy your child’s growth and development during the extended treatment time. Thanks to support from generous benefactors, parents of all children in the single ventricle surgery process receive a digital scale and an oxygen saturation monitor.

Online Resources to Support Cardiac Kids & Parents

Explore information about congenital heart conditions and other aspects of pediatric heart health to support your child and family as you live well with your child’s heart condition. Take advantage of online resources from across the nation, including:

• March of Dimes – Works to prevent birth defects and infant mortality

• Mended Little Hearts – Provides hope and support to children and families affected by congenital heart disease

• Children’s Heart Foundation – Brings health, hope and happiness to children affected by congenital heart defects

• Children’s Heart Foundation Education – Offers extensive information and facts to help you learn about congenital heart defects

• Little Hearts, Inc. – Provides support, education, resources and networking through a national organization for families and children living with congenital heart defects

• Geggel’s Congenital Heart Disease Library – Presents extensive multimedia resources for information about congenital heart conditions

• Kids with Heart – Offers information for parents of children with congenital heart disorders, including specific conditions and links to more resources

• CaringBridge – Provides free, personalized websites and online journals that connect families and friends during a health event, making it easier to share health updates and receive messages of love and support

• Conquering CHD – Supports the mission of conquering congenital heart disease; formerly known as Pediatric Congenital Heart Association

• Conquering CHD / Education – Provides extensive educational information about congenital heart disease

• Linked by Heart – Offers regional and local support and resources to families affected by hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS)

• American Academy of Pediatrics – Presents information about a wide range of children’s health conditions; includes links to AAP’s official parenting website

• American Academy of Pediatrics’ Healthy Children – Heart Conditions – Provides AAP’s pediatric heart-specific information

• American College of Cardiology – Offers specialized information about congenital heart disease from the nation’s pediatric cardiologists

• American Heart Association – Provides helpful information about congenital heart defects from the well-known U.S. heart health advocacy organization

• Adult Congenital Heart Association – Offers extensive information, advocacy, research and support to improve and extend the lives of millions born with heart defects

Your Child’s Pediatric Cardiology Care Team

During the time you and your child spend at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital 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.

You benefit from collaborating with an experienced pediatric cardiovascular team that directly involves you and your family in treatment decisions and:

• Pays close attention to your family’s nonmedical needs with support from child life specialists, social workers, therapists and other healthcare professionals from many disciplines

• 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