Heart Transplant Program, Delaware Valley

We offer the full range of medical and surgical care leading up to heart transplant including:

Heart Transplant Evaluations

We explain everything and give you the information and tools you need to make the best decisions for your family. We walk your family through the process, performing all the needed medical, psychological and social assessments to help ensure success. We also offer second opinions for providers and families to help them decide the best path forward.

Getting on the Heart Transplant List

We’re part of United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), an organization that manages the nation’s organ transplant system for the federal government. We submit your child’s assessment and they match an organ when available.

Heart Failure Management 

Whether your child is home, at the hospital or in critical care, our heart failure team helps keep your child healthy and strong while waiting for transplant. We manage their heart care with medicines, cardiac rehabilitation, nutritional counseling, cardiac psychology support, interventional heart procedures, electrophysiology services, cardiothoracic surgery and more. 

As a Cardiomyopathy Foundation Accredited Center of Care, we offer the highest quality of care available.

Mechanical Circulatory Support

For hearts that need help to work, our experts use the latest mechanical circulatory support devices, like extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and ventricular assist devices (VADs) as a bridge to transplant. We customize services to your child’s specific needs.

Nemours is recognized for excellence in pediatric heart surgery. Our survival rates are among the best in the nation. 

We’re pioneers and leaders in the field. We were the first in state of Delaware to give a child a new heart, and we develop new surgical methods for kids with rare and complex heart conditions. 

Our transplant surgery care includes:

• Elite experts in cardiothoracic surgery, cardiac anesthesiology, cardiac critical care, cardiology, inpatient heart care, nursing and many others who work as one team 
• Advanced heart imaging, like 3D echocardiography and heart MRI to help plan a more precise, accurate surgery
• Minimally invasive methods, like those that need fewer, smaller cuts on the outside of the skin to help with recovery
• ABO-incompatible heart transplants, or using a heart from a donor that doesn’t match your child’s blood type 
• Advanced life support and the latest equipment to monitor your child closely throughout transplant surgery
• Experience in multi-organ transplants in children, including heart-lung, heart-kidney, heart-liver and others
• Heart transplants for all ages, from infants to adults up to age 40
• Re-transplant surgery, as donor hearts last about 25 years   

Learn More from Nemours KidsHealth®

If your child needs a heart transplant, you have many questions. Learn about heart transplant surgery, the process and what to expect from the experts at Nemours KidsHealth.

Immediately after transplant, our cardiac critical care team, that’s been part of your child’s care from the start, closely monitors your child’s recovery in our fully equipped critical care unit.

We partner with your child’s surgeons, cardiologists and cardiac anesthesiologists, and work closely with pharmacists with advanced experience in pediatric heart transplantation. We use the latest medicines to prevent organ rejection and reduce the risk for complications. 

Our cardiac Enhanced Recovery After Surgery program ensures we’re doing everything we can before, during and after surgery to make it a little easier on you and your child. 

And our inpatient heart care team provides extensive, hands-on training on how to care for your child at home after transplant. 

At Nemours, heart care doesn’t end after transplant. Our heart center offers integrated programs and care throughout your child’s life, including:

• Cardiac rehabilitation therapies, which includes inpatient and outpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy and other support to help your child grow stronger
  
• Cardiac neurodevelopmental support to help protect behavioral, emotional and intellectual health so your child can develop to their highest ability
• Nutritional support, using healthy foods that aid in recovery
• Complete condition management to help detect problems and prevent complications that can happen after transplant
• Quick, convenient access to more than 30 pediatric specialties, like kidney specialists, hematologists and others, on-site and close to home
• Support services that begin on your very first visit, like social work, Child Life, creative therapy, pet therapy, pastoral care, family lodging at the nearby Ronald McDonald House and more