James Morris
20170804JKM189
UK HealthCare staff and officials gathered to announce a partnership with Cincinnati Children's Hospital to resume pediatric heart surgeries in Lexington, along with one of the first patients, Magdalen Wilson, who underwent heart surgery at UK Children's Hospital in July.
UK HealthCare has partnered with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to resume pediatric heart care services in Lexington.
UK HealthCare's Kentucky Children's Hospital Medical Center and Cincinnati Children's will jointly provide pediatric cardiothoracic services under a “one program, two sites” model, giving patients from Kentucky the opportunity to have surgical procedures, diagnostics and therapeutic interventions performed in Lexington. Recommendations for care will be based on what is best for patients' safety and quality, allowing families to stay closer to home when appropriate.
“Every member of the joint heart program team – which includes more than 100 physicians, nurses, technicians and other specially trained staff – has one main goal and one agenda, and that is to provide the best care possible to our patients,” said Bo Cofield, UK HealthCare’s chief clinical operations officer, in announcing the decision to resume pediatric heart surgeries. “It was very important for our patients and their families that we do everything we can to provide the highest quality services and care, and we are confident we have that ability with this program.”
Pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. James Quintessenza joined UK HealthCare in December to lead the program. Previously, Dr. Quintessenza worked at All Children’s Hospital (later named All Children’s Hospital John Hopkins) in St. Petersburg, Florida, as medical director and chief of pediatric cardiac surgery.
UK HealthCare officials made the voluntary decision to suspend pediatric cardiothoracic (CT) services in 2012, and a task force was charged with providing recommendations regarding the future of the program. A Letter of Intent (LOI) was signed with Cincinnati Children's in 2015, and the agreement between the two institutions was finalized in September 2016.
The high quality of services at Cincinnati Children’s, ranked third among the nation’s pediatric hospitals recently by U.S. News and World Report, was an important factor in UK’s decision to restart its pediatric heart surgery program. Other key components have been the recruitment and hiring of a world-class program team including pediatric cardiac anesthesia, pediatric cardiac critical care, pediatric perfusion, specialized physician assistants, and advanced practice nurse practitioners, among others. In addition, UK HealthCare staff participate in intense on-site training at Cincinnati Children’s through the partnership, while also investing in infrastructure enabling success through telehealth and other technologies, and specialized equipment and supplies.
“Today this program represents the culmination of three years of work between Cincinnati Children’s and the University of Kentucky to reopen the pediatric cardiac surgical program in Lexington,” said Dr. Andrew Redington, executive co-director of the Heart Institute and chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Cincinnati Children’s. “By establishing a ‘one program-two site’ collaboration, we ensure that children will get the right operation, in the right place at the right time. We are all delighted that the first cases have done well, and anticipate ongoing success in the years to come.”