A history of innovation
The Heart Center at Boston Children's Hospital was founded in 1950 by Alexander S. Nadas, MD, and has grown to become the largest and one of the most respected pediatric cardiovascular programs in the world, with a history of cardiac care innovations.
2009: Institution of the Congenital Heart Valve Program, devoted to developing better ways of treating malfunctioning heart valves.
2008: Institution of Standardized Clinical Patient and Management Plans (SCAMP), a novel approach for developing better strategies for patient care.
2007: Institution of 24-hour in-house cardiac intensivist faculty coverage for the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.
2004: Institution of the Crisis Resource Management Program is established to train practitioners using cardiac simulation techniques.
2003: Since the inception of the Heart Transplant Program in 1986, Boston Children's cardiac surgeons have performed more than 150 heart transplants, making it one of the largest pediatric heart transplant programs in the country.
2003: Boston Children's continues to perform fetal interventions to treat congenital heart defects. Since the hospital's first attempt in March 2000, the Heart Center's Fetal Program has performed 15 fetal interventions, including 11 aortic valve balloon dilations, creation of three atrial septal defects and one pulmonary valve dilation.
2002: The first-ever successful in utero repair of a heart defect in a fetus is performed, resulting in the birth of a healthy baby.
2002: Boston Children's is the first pediatric center to obtain a surgical robotic system. The first procedures were performed in March 2002; since then the Department of Cardiac Surgery has carried out many robotic-assisted operations.
2002: Boston Children's is the first to perform robot-assisted surgery to correct a Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA), a blood vessel present in fetal life that does not close properly, resulting in excess blood to the lungs.
2002: Laboratory Medicine investigator Nader Rifai, MD, co-authors a landmark study likely to alter federal guidelines for cardiovascular disease detection, showing that a simple and inexpensive blood test for C-reactive protein (CRP)—a substance produced in the liver when arteries become inflamed—is a more powerful predictor of a person's risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke than screening based on LDL cholesterol.
2002: HHMI investigator Mark Keating, MD, shows for the first time that zebrafish can regenerate heart muscle within two months after a severe injury. His team also identifies a possible genetic and molecular model for regeneration in zebrafish which could help direct further research that would benefit millions of people who suffer heart attacks or experience other forms of cardiac injury.
2001: Boston Children's clinicians care for a hemophiliac patient with life-threatening heart disease, making him the world's first hemophiliac to be placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and only the second to undergo a heart transplant.
2001: Boston Children's performs the world's first successful in utero treatment of hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) in a 19-week-old fetus, threading a cardiac catheter through the fetus's atrial valve and inflating a balloon to widen the opening.
2000: Boston Children's Heart Center performs its 100th heart transplant.
1999: Thomas Jaksic, MD, introduces new laboratory techniques to analyze nutritional and energy requirements of the critically ill neonate, even those on life support and ECMO. These techniques have significant likelihood of influencing care for very sick neonates.
1999: The FDA approves the use of the CardioSEAL, a minimally invasive device developed at Boston Children's to repair holes in the hearts of the most seriously ill heart patients. The device is implanted with a cardiac catheter.
1999: Simon Hoerstrup, MD, grows replacement heart valves from the cells of sheep, an advance expected to lead to more durable valves than the mechanical and animal valves used today.
1996: Kathy Jenkins, MD, and James Lock, MD, develop the Webster-Jenkins basket catheter to provide rapid diagnostic information in mapping multiple sites of cardiac arrhythmias.
1990: Radio waves directed through a catheter correct a cardiac rhythm disorder called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, marking the first pediatric non-surgical repair of a cardiac arrhythmia.
1980: First “Norwood” repair of hypoplastic left heart syndrome by William Norwood, MD.
1972: First routine intracardiac palliation of complex congenital heart disease in infants by Aldo Castaneda, MD.
1938: Robert Gross, MD, performs the world's first successful surgical procedure to correct a congenital cardiovascular defect.
Innovations play a critical role in our patient’s health, so our Heart Center team is constantly creating new ways to improve care. Some are rooted in scientific research done in labs. Other improvements arise from moments spent at the bedside, when doctors and nurses see opportunities to improve current treatment methods. 
Boston Children's is one of the top pediatric research centers in the world. Our cardiovascular research program includes laboratory scientists and clinical researchers who investigate heart conditions from every angle – from examining cells under the microscope to tracking response to current drug regimens – so we can create better treatments for your child.
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