Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect, with approximately 7,200 critical congenital heart defects recorded in the United States annually. The Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program program values the early diagnosis of congenital heart disease in newborns prior to the clinical deterioration of affected infants and promotes early detection of CHD through the use of pulse oximetry following 24-hours of age, prior to discharge from the newborn nursery. The program promotes the importance of the screening of all healthy newborns for CHD through an evidence-based toolkit containing recommendations for screening adding pulse oximetry to routine testing performed on all infants that are not already thought to have CHD.

The Congenital Heart Disease Screening Program values early diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) with a goal of making screening for CHD a standard practice for all newborns.

The physicians at Children's National in the National Heart Institute created a toolkit that nurseries may use to start a screening program to improve detection of serious CHD.

A study began in 2009 at Holy Cross Hospital, where all newborns received pulse oximetry testing before leaving the nursery. The program identified an unspecified number of babies with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) before they left the nursery and Holy Cross Hospital ultimately decided to make pulse oximetry screening the standard of care at their facility. The Children's National team created a toolkit that nurseries may use to start their own screening program. This toolkit has been sent to over 200 national and international hospitals, associations and advocates who have expressed interest in improving detection of serious CHD.

In October, 2010, the Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children recommended to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that CCHD screening become a part of the recommended uniform screening panel. In Fall 2011, the Secretary supported this recommendation. The American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Academy of Pediatrics, and March of Dimes all endorse CHD screening.