About the Heart Center

Family Centered Care

Addressing physical, social and emotional needs
At the Heart Center, we understand the difficulties families endure when a child is diagnosed with heart disease. Our approach to comprehensive care recognizes the need to support the entire family.

We educate families, keep them up-to-date on their child’s condition, provide straight answers to tough questions and offer the support they need to help them manage the social and emotional challenges that heart disease can present.

Heart-to-Heart
To help families cope, 20 years ago our staff established Heart-to-Heart, a parent support group with six regional chapters throughout western Pennsylvania. Through Heart-to-Heart, families with a child recently diagnosed with heart disease are introduced to other families with similar experiences. Volunteer families from Heart-to-Heart visit hospitalized patients and their parents every week throughout the year. They also provide support over the telephone. After a child returns home, parents are invited to participate in monthly support group meetings and the annual Heart-to-Heart family picnic.

Heart Camp
We’ve recently celebrated 15 years of the Dr. Bill Neches Heart Camp for Kids, an annual four-day summer camp for children ages 8-16 who have undergone heart-related medical procedures, including transplants. This camp was founded by and named in honor of William Neches, MD, recently retired and former chief of Cardiology.

Heart Camp is staffed entirely by physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers and others from Children’s Hospital. In addition, all of the counselors and some of the nurses are also heart patients. In this non-medical setting, physicians are able not only to evaluate the children’s health but also to develop more personal relationships with their patients.

Heart Camp gives children a chance to enjoy outdoor activities from horseback riding and swimming to crafts and campfires. Most importantly, Heart Camp encourages children to talk with their peers about issues and concerns they have about their disease, share their experiences and make new friends.

Top