Dell Children’s Medical Center doubles space for its cardiac critical care unit in Austin

Dell Children’s Medical Center doubled the number of its cardiac critical care unit beds last week from 24 to 48 by opening a new unit in its main hospital.

The new unit takes over a space that was part of the pediatric intensive care unit, which moved after the fourth tower opened in November 2022.

The doubling of the critical care unit comes five years after the launch of the Texas Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease, a joint project of the hospital and UT Health Austin, the clinical arm of Dell Medical School.

The center has now done more than 2,000 heart surgeries, including 30 heart transplants and all the mechanical intervention surgeries that can be done as well as a partial heart transplant. It now had delivered babies in the hospital who were diagnosed with heart programs as fetuses and then are taken immediately to surgery at birth.

“Because of their expertise, we’ve had to expand,” said Michael Wiggins, the president of Dell Children’s, about the cardiac team. “It is a milestone on our path and our commitment to delivering the highest level and most comprehensive heart care to families in Central Texas.”

The program has grown faster than anyone anticipated, getting to mechanical devices and heart transplants years before Dr. Charles Fraser Jr., the head of the cardiac program, thought they would.

“Who would have thought we would be here five years ago, opening up our 48th dedicated critical care bed for children, adults, patients and families with congenital heart disease?” Fraser said.

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He pointed to the dozens of nurses, doctors and fellows who gathered for the opening on Thursday: “None of them were here five years ago,” he said.

The growth he said, “is driven by the need, the need of patients and families,” he said.

Patients are coming from throughout Texas, neighboring states and even Europe, South America and Africa for cardiac care.

Because the center outgrew the cardiac critical care unit, it has had to control how many patients could enter its program. “You’ve got to have a bed available,” said Dr. Chesney Castleberry, the medical director for the heart failure, VAD (ventricular assist device), and transplant program. Now, she’ll be able to bring in more kids as well as added staff.

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The opening of a second unit puts critical cardiac patients in one space. Previously, the hospital had some of its critical cardiac patients housed throughout the hospital because it outgrew the original unit, which opened in 2019. Fraser expects this new unit will be full within a month. The hospital will make use of space in the neonatal intensive care unit, which also recently expanded, and the new pediatric intensive care unit, he said, when both cardiac units are full.

Ten of the new unit’s beds will be for children in heart failure, many of whom are waiting for a heart transplant. Patients typically wait three to four months for a heart once listed, and those too sick to be at home, move into the hospital until the transplant happens. With that in mind, Dell Children’s added showers to those rooms so family members can stay with their children and not only have the pull-out couch, but also a full bathroom.

“It’s their unit, it’s their hospital and we’re just lucky to participate in their lives,” Fraser said.