The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital ranked No. 4 of 50 institutions in the nation on U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Children’s Hospitals for Cardiology and Heart Surgery.
This is the second consecutive year the downtown hospital’s Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center ranked No. 4. Dr. Mark Scheurer, chief of children’s and women’s services at MUSC, told the Charleston City Paper that maintaining this rank reflects the institution’s consistency when it comes to patient care.
“Being in the top five is a tribute to the kind of teamwork and focus on the mission that the heart team has from all levels — from the pediatric heart surgeons to the bedside nurses,” Scheurer said.
“Everyone is focused on patient- and family-level outcomes,” he said. “It’s pretty unusual to have a program of this size rank so highly, particularly in the outcomes domain. And that’s a testament to our team-based approach and putting the patients first.”
The ranking methodology for the pediatric cardiology and heart surgery category considers an institution’s volume and outcome reporting, the experience of its surgeons and the quantity of surgical procedures and neonatal cardiac operations, among other criteria.
MUSC’s Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center downtown is part of a statewide pediatric cardiology network called the Children’s Heart Program of South Carolina. It is the only pediatric center in the state that performs cardiac surgery and catheterizations. About 400 children undergo heart surgery through the program each year, and thousands are seen in clinics for catheter procedures or other evaluations throughout the state, Scheurer said.
U.S. News managing editor and chief of health analysis Ben Harder recognized the Children’s Heart Program of South Carolina’s innovative approach.
“MUSC Children’s Heart Network of South Carolina is a remarkable example of a hospital that has done exceptionally well in this speciality ranking because it’s a multi-hospital collaboration between the Medical University of South Carolina, which is a major hospital for both kids and adults, and several smaller, outlying hospitals scattered across the state that send all their sick kids who need heart surgery to the main MUSC campus,” Harder said.
All surgeries in the Children’s Heart Program of South Carolina are performed at MUSC’s children’s hospital, Scheurer said, but the network is also a collaboration of pediatric cardiologists in Charleston and other cities such as Greenville, Columbia and Florence to provide statewide care beyond their own institutions.
“We all very strongly believe in local care of kids and families and follow-up care close to home,” he said. “We also believe that we should create the highest level of complex services in one site so that the team and expertise can be developed to get the best outcomes.”
MUSC’s pediatric heart program coordinates with the patient’s local cardiologists to make sure the child and their family are back home as quickly as we can, he said.
“That’s the kind of teamwork and collaboration that makes our program different from many across the country.As a state, we’ve taken the approach that working together is in the best interest of kids and can get us the best outcome for them. And I think that’s what these rankings represent.”
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