NEW ORLEANS – At the head of Ryleigh Hughes’ hospital bed an 18-inch, plush Mike the Tiger, sporting a No. 1 LSU football jersey, stands guard. The two-week-old recently underwent open-heart surgery to repair a congenital defect. She has fought with a tiger’s ferocity, and is recovering according to plan in Louisiana’s first pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU), which opened in October 2009.

 

The Heart Center at Children’s Hospital is a nationally recognized leader in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with congenital cardiovascular disorders, which are detected in about one in every 100 births in the United States

 

“We designed and built this unit specifically for our young heart patients,” said Joseph Caspi, MD, director of cardiothoracic surgery. “Our goal is to enhance the quality of life for every child we see, and this new unit puts us in the best position to provide world-class care right here in New Orleans.”

 

After closing for a month following Hurricane Katrina, Children’s Hospital focused on building The Heart Center, a collaboration with LSU Health Sciences Center, into one of the finest pediatric cardiac programs in the nation. The Heart Center’s team of eight pediatric cardiologists and three cardiothoracic surgeons annually treat more than 2,000 children and adults from throughout the world. The growth of the Heart Program required a special unit designated solely for cardiac patients.

 

The new CICU is built in one of the original sections of Children’s Hospital, which opened in 1955. The state-of-the-art unit features 10 private rooms for the most critical patients – some just days old – who are recovering from heart surgery. The unit completes an $11.6 million renovation that created a new 9,456-square-foot, 18-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and an 8,193 square-foot, 20-bed CICU at the Uptown hospital. The two units previously shared 25 beds in the space now occupied by the CICU.

 

The CICU is as beautiful as it is technologically advanced. Decorated throughout with designs by New Orleans glass artist, Laurel Porcari, the CICU offers a calm, peaceful ambiance to counter the potential stress that can arise from the nature of the care provided within.

 

“It’s a great working environment that was custom designed for our needs,” said cardiothoracic surgeon Tim Pettitt. “We have a lot of natural light that comes in, which helps our patients recover and keeps our staff upbeat. It’s really an amazing unit.”

 

Each bed in the new CICU is equipped with cardiac monitoring systems and designed to allow medical staff to perform almost any procedure, including emergency surgery, bedside. Ceiling-mounted surgical lights and boom arms that provide patients oxygen and medical gas have been upgraded from the previously standard wall-mounted design, allowing medical professionals 360-degree access to the child.

 

The beds are arranged around a central nurses’ station, where the unit’s 40-plus nurses have the ability to order all testing needed for their patients in addition to having immediate access to all lab and radiology results without ever needing to leave their patient’s bedside. Each bed also has an accompanying chair, so families can remain close to their children. The family waiting area is located just footsteps from the CICU. The waiting area has space for 24 parents to spend the night, as well as a separate sitting area for visiting family members.

 

“Our staff understands that parents and families are an important factor in a child’s recovery,” said Mary Richardson, RN, CICU nurse manager. “We encourage them to participate in caring for their child as their condition allows.”

 

The Heart Center at Children’s Hospital services 23 cardiologists in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as all pediatricians, perinatal services and neonatologists in the two-state area.

 

Last year, the Cardiology Department performed almost 10,000 inpatient and outpatient procedures, including interventional cardiac catheterization treatments for congenital heart disease and fetal echocardiograms to help diagnose heart conditions in babies before they are born.

 

The Center also has an adult congenital heart disease program which serves the very fast-growing population of adults who have survived previous surgeries and need further follow-up and/or surgeries to help them through life. The cardiac catheterization lab did more than 300 procedures in 2008, with more than half being interventional treatments for congenital heart disease.

 

“Children’s Hospital’s Heart Team is trained to treat the unique needs of children whose levels of care range from basic to highly critical,” said Robert Ascuitto, MD, director of Children’s Hospital’s Cardiology Department. “We’re focused on ensuring the most sophisticated quality of care in a compassionate, comfortable and convenient environment, and we have all three in this amazing new unit. Children’s is often credited as a place where miracles happen. This CICU will ensure a few more in the coming years.”

 

The Cardiothoracic Surgery team is one of the most successful cardiac surgical programs in the country, offering complete repair of complex congenital heart defects. They performed 417 heart surgeries in 2008, sometimes operating on as many as three children a day. Roughly 60 percent of the Center’s surgeries involved children younger than a year, and 30 percent were performed on newborns less than a month old.

 

“Our Cardiac Program is one of the biggest in the country if you look at the numbers,” said Stephen Levine, MD, former director of Children’s Hospital’s PICU. “They needed their own unit. They’ve got more surgeons now, so they’re going to have more cases and can take on more difficult cases.