“There is a single unified group at Children’s with a common vision for the program,” says Dr. Thomas Zellers, chief medical officer and an interventional cardiologist on the medical staff at Children’s. “With Dr. Forbess as the new chief of cardiothoracic surgery, we expect to have true collaboration between cardiovascular surgery and cardiology, and to be able to make this run as a completely melded system. Clinical cardiologists are embraced in this vision as well, and we want their active participation in the program. Our intent is to make Children’s the number one cardiac center in Texas and one of the top five pediatric cardiac centers in the country.”

The hospital’s cardiovascular surgery program dates back to the late 1950s, when doctors performed the first open-heart surgery at Children’s. The cardiac program grew substantially under the guidance of Dr. Hisashi Nikaidoh, who joined the Children’s medical staff in 1978 and served as the first chief of the cardiothoracic surgery division at Children’s beginning in 1983. Dr. Steven Leonard and Dr. Steves Ring joined him as part of the medical staff and cardiovascular division in 1987, the year that Children’s initiated its preventive cardiology program.

Three years ago, the cardiac care team’s goal was to recruit a chief of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery rated among the top five in the country and an expert in neonatal surgery. Now, those goals are achieved with the addition of Drs. Forbess and Yeh to the team.

With the combination of great clinical skill and a fresh, innovative approach to patient care, Dr. Forbess is considered one of the best pediatric cardiovascular surgeons in the nation. His mortality rate is among the nation’s lowest.

“There are only a handful of pediatric cardiac surgeons with his kind of talent and results,” Dr. Zellers proclaims.

Dr. Forbess’ vision for the cardiothoracic program is to continue the tradition of excellence laid by his predecessors — by providing the best quality outcomes through a combination of extraordinary clinical skills, leading-edge, state-of-the-art technology, and innovative research. The vision also includes improving outcomes by focusing attention on neonatal cardiac surgery and clinical research.

“The program in Dallas is intriguing in that for pediatric cardiac surgery you need a large population base, and Dallas is a vibrant, growing metropolitan area. We have a very powerful medical school at UT Southwestern and a very large freestanding pediatric hospital at Children’s,” Dr. Forbess says.

Dr. Forbess previously served as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and at Emory Hospital, also in Atlanta. While at Emory, Dr. Forbess played a major role in decreasing the mortality rate from 5.0 percent to 0.8 percent. In addition, Dr. Forbess served as an assistant in cardiovascular surgery for one year and as an associate in cardiovascular surgery for two years at Children’s Hospital Boston.

In addition to Dr. Yeh’s strong clinical abilities in neonatal cardiac surgery, he is renowned for his work in molecular biology research and clinical database management.

“If you are going to provide safe, quality care, you have to be able to have data to look back upon to determine what you’re doing right and what needs improvement,” say Dr. Zellers. “Dr. Yeh has a particular talent in database management, which for a cardiac and surgical program is incredibly important.”

Dr. Yeh previously served in the pediatric cardiothoracic surgery division at Kosair Children’s Hospital and as an assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery at The University of Louisville.

The vision of the Comprehensive Center for Heart Care at Children’s, one of the hospital’s three Centers of Excellence, is to capitalize on cardiology discoveries in the laboratory by translating them into new clinical therapies and treatments that will save and improve lives. In conjunction with UT Southwestern, this multidisciplinary center focuses on preventing cardiac disease in children while significantly improving the quality of care outcomes for children with heart disease and defects.

Children’s already is home to one of the most active cardiac care programs of its kind in the nation, performing more than 500 cardiac surgeries annually, including more than 300 open-heart surgeries.

Since pediatric cardiology programs are judged largely on the survival rate of their patients who undergo open-heart surgeries, the primary goal of the Comprehensive Center for Heart Care at Children’s is to reduce the mortality rate for procedures. Cardiothoracic surgery outcomes at Children’s in 2004 had a 1.7 percent mortality rate.

Patients admitted to the cardiac care program at Children’s benefit from a full complement of state-of-the-art, pediatric-specific services available to provide the most comprehensive care available.

The program has dedicated cardiac operating rooms and is the only program of its kind in North Texas with a dedicated 17-bed cardiac ICU. Each year, 25 to 30 patients with cardiac and cardiopulmonary diseases treated at Children’s require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. ECMO, or heartlung bypass, plays a significant role in the ability to improve the outcome statistics associated with neonatal patients. Children’s has the only heart center with 24-hour resuscitation ECMO capabilities for all cardiac patients, and the capability to have four patients on ECMO at one time.

Children’s has the only pediatric heart center where echocardiograms are always read by a doctor whose subspecialty is pediatric echocardiography. The Children’s pediatric echocardiography laboratory services include fetal and transesophageal echocardiography. The echocardiography laboratory at Children’s is staffed by four full-time echocardiogram specialists on faculty at UT Southwestern. Imaging and diagnostic services at Children’s also includes cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.

The more than 750 procedures performed in the hospital’s two cardiac catheterization laboratories places Children’s among the top 10 catheterization laboratories in the country in patient volume. The medical staff provides both diagnostic and interventional catheterizations and conducts electrophysiology studies involving radiofrequency ablations and a newer, safer method of treating children with heart arrhythmias called cryoablation. The number of catheterization patients at Children’s has nearly doubled in the past five years.

Since completing the first pediatric heart transplant in Dallas in 1988, the medical staff at Children’s has performed more than 71 heart transplants with a one-year survival rate of 87 percent and a 10-year survival rate of 68 percent, both well above the national average. Children’s remains the only free-standing pediatric hospital in North Texas performing heart transplant surgery.

Children’s was the first facility in North Texas to have a pediatric heart rhythm program, which ranks among the top 10 centers in the country in business volume. Children’s is the only Dallas facility to have medical staff members with specialized training in the management of pacemakers and implanted defibrillators in children. In addition, a dedicated team of technicians provides an array of non-invasive electrocardiographic services contained within the cardiology division.

Expansion plans are under way to provide more dedicated operating and intensive care unit rooms, to create space for new state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment and to consolidate the cardiac care program on one floor of the hospital to improve the continuity of care to patients. The Harold Simmons Foundation has made a $5 million gift to help fund the establishment of the Annette Simmons Heart Hospital at Children’s.