Pediatric Advanced Cardiac Therapies (PACT) Program

Having a child with a serious heart condition that may require heart transplant can feel scary and overwhelming. It’s important to find a heart center that is well equipped to care for your child’s unique needs and yours, as a family. As one of the first heart centers in the nation to innovatively combine heart failure and heart transplantation into a single program, we provide world-class, highly individualized care to children of all ages. We care for children along all stages of the treatment spectrum, from diagnostic evaluations to heart failure treatment, ventricular assist device implantation, and heart transplantation.

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Why choose us for your child’s advanced heart care needs

Learn more about the PACT program at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and how we can help provide the best care for your child’s advanced heart needs.

Our large, comprehensive team of pediatric heart experts at the renowned Betty Irene Moore Children’s Heart Center (cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, heart transplant specialists, fetal cardiologists, cardiovascular intensive care specialists) empowers us to care for children with the highest level of complex congenital heart conditions and heart failure. As part of a top children’s hospital, we also have access to experts in liver, kidneys, and lungs to support all organs that may be affected by a heart condition, as well as cardiac genetic counselors, cardiac psychologists, transplant coordinators, and social workers to support your family through the transplant process.

We performed our first pediatric heart transplant more than 35 years ago, and since then we’ve completed 500+ heart transplants to date, a higher volume than found at almost any other pediatric heart centers in the United States and the most in California for nine years straight. We also lead in ventricular assist device (VAD) volumes, placing 200+ VADs to date.

Despite treating some of the most difficult and highly complex heart failure cases, including multi-organ heart transplants, and transplanting an extraordinary number of babies younger than 1 year old, we achieve outstanding outcomes. Our achievements include attaining one-year survival rates of over 94% for heart transplant, exceeding the national average. We do not hesitate to take on the smallest and sickest patients, even those who could not be treated elsewhere.

Our many clinical firsts and research-driven approach enable us to improve patient care and outcomes. We offer our patients novel, leading-edge treatment options, backed by our respected research university, including therapies for transplant immunosuppression and a unique donor-matching technique with computerized tomography (CT) scans that ensures the best donor match and reduces wait times for heart transplant.

Meet Mackenzie, our 500th heart transplant patient

Stanford Medicine Children’s Health achieves rare milestone in pediatric heart transplantation. Tiffany Collins never would have guessed that her healthy, active daughter, Mackenzie, would be the 500th heart transplant patient.

Read Mackenzie's story >

Patient Stories