Telehealth Home Monitoring and Postcardiac Surgery for Congenital Heart Disease.

Objectives: To test the effect of a 4-month telehealth home monitoring program (REACH), layered on usual care, on postdischarge outcomes in parents of infants recovering from cardiac surgery and their infants.

Methods: Randomized trial of infants discharged from the hospital after cardiac surgery for congenital heart disease. Consecutive infants with complex congenital heart disease undergoing cardiac surgery within 21 days of life were enrolled at 3 university-affiliated pediatric cardiac centers.

The REACH protocol: an innovative strategy for home management of infants with complex CHD.

Approximately 32,000 infants are born with CHDs each year in the United States of America. Of every 1000 live births, 2.3 require surgical or transcatheter intervention in the first year of life.

Guidelines for the outpatient management of complex congenital heart disease.

An increasingly complex group of children is now being followed as outpatients after surgery for congenital heart disease. A variety of complications and physiologic perturbations, both expected and unexpected, may present during follow-up, and should be anticipated by the practitioner and discussed with the patient and family. The purpose of this position article is to provide a framework for outpatient follow-up of complex congenital heart disease, based on a review of current literature and the experience of the authors.