Continuum Heart Institute now offers an Adult Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) Clinic staffed by specialists in adult cardiology with adult CHD training. The clinic also is supported by a team of experts in pediatric cardiology, noninvasive cardiac imaging and cardiac electrophysiology.

Although the number of infants born with CHD has remained constant at about four to six per 1000 live births, advances in pediatric cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery over the past three decades have dramatically changed the outcomes and prognoses for these patients. Over 85 percent of these children can now be expected to reach adulthood. As a result, the population with adult congenital heart disease is expected to continue to increase.

This means that there is an entire population of adults with corrected anomalies who need follow-up and another population (such as immigrant groups) without awareness of their anomalies. Surgical repair is seldom curative, and more often palliative. It leaves residue for manifestation of infection, arrhythmias, congestive heart failure and exercise intolerance, making care from adult CHD-trained cardiologists essential.

Unfortunately, most cardiologists receive little training in CHD, leaving them inadequately prepared for their pediatric patients' clinical needs. Similarly, pediatric cardiologists are not trained to care for the adult manifestations of heart disease. Further, the long-term sequence of curative, reparative and palliative surgery is not well understood, making decisions regarding reoperation, pregnancy and exercise prescription complex and warranting close follow-up by clinicians dedicated to adult CHD.