If your child needs congenital heart surgery, our team of expert, compassionate congenital heart surgeons, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, nurses and other health care professionals work together to care for your child.

What is perfusion?

Perfusion refers to everything that is done to make sure your child’s circulatory (heart and blood) and respiratory (breathing) needs are being met during open-heart surgery.

During surgery, they will place your child on cardiopulmonary bypass using a heart-lung machine, allowing the heart and lungs to be stopped while the surgeon operates. The perfusionists work with the anesthesiologist and surgeon to closely monitor all vital life support functions during bypass.

Our perfusionist team is also responsible for providing long-term support of your child’s circulation after the operation is concluded.

Perfusionists also have expertise in:

• ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) – advanced cardiopulmonary life support (CHoR is home to the region's only pediatric Extracorporeal Life Support Organization gold-certified ECMO program)
• Ventricular assist devices (VADs) and total artificial hearts for patients in heart failure
• Blood conservation during surgery to reduce the need for transfusions
• Neuromonitoring to protect and preserve brain function during cardiopulmonary bypass

Patients are not directly referred for perfusion services but receive this to support children's' hearts and lungs during surgery.