Pediatric Heart Care: Quality and Outcomes

Dr. Otaki smiles as he bumps fists with a patient.
Dr. Yoshio Otaki is one of our pediatric heart surgeons who care for patients and take part in research to improve outcomes.

Doernbecher Children’s Hospital is dedicated to giving your child and family the highest-quality care. As part of our commitment to excellence and transparency, we’re pleased to share information on our heart surgery outcomes.

Dedicated to improving care

We are proud members of national organizations working to improve care and outcomes:

  • The National Pediatric Cardiology Quality Improvement Collaborative is a network of more than 60 leading pediatric cardiology care centers in the U.S., Canada and United Kingdom. The collaborative is dedicated to improving outcomes for children with congenital heart disease. NPC-QIC is particularly focused on improving interstage outcomes (between a first and second surgery) for infants with single ventricle heart disease.
  • The Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium, a group of about 70 elite children’s hospitals devoted to improving care for patients with critical pediatric and congenital heart disease. Members share data, best practices and other information to improve performance everywhere.
  • The American College of Cardiology’s IMPACT Registry, which shares data and offers educational opportunities to improve care for children and adults who have catheterization procedures for congenital heart disease.

Culture of excellence

As part of our culture of excellence, team members from across our program meet weekly to identify and make changes that improve patient outcomes.

Heart surgery outcomes

Doernbecher voluntarily and publicly reports congenital heart surgery statistics to the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. The STS is the recognized leader in efforts to improve outcomes for surgeries for congenital heart disease.

Survival rates reflect patients who survived at least 30 days after surgery and who were discharged from the hospital. Please note that every case is different and that statistics cannot predict the outcome for any particular child. Some categories have only a few cases per hospital, which can significantly skew the survival rate.

If you have questions or concerns about your child’s unique condition, the heart care team at Doernbecher would be happy to talk with you. Families can call us at 503-346-0640. Referring providers can reach us at 503-346-0644.

For families

Call 503-346-0640 to:

  • Request an appointment.
  • Seek a second opinion.
  • Ask questions.

Find resources and support.

Locations

Parking is free for patients and their visitors.

Doernbecher Children’s Hospital
700 S.W. Campus Drive
Portland, OR 97239
Map and directions

Find other locations across Oregon and in southwest Washington.

Refer a patient

Overall survival, Jan. 1, 2019-Dec. 31, 2022

Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 627 97.3%
STS 91,798 97.3%

Survival rates by type of surgery, Jan. 1, 2019-Dec. 31, 2022

Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 32 96.9%
STS 3,128 99.1%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 62 100%
STS 7,294 99.6%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 27 96.3%
STS 4,362 99.1%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 17 100%
STS 3,056 98.3%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 15 93.3%
STS 1,887 98.2%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 6 50.0%
STS 816 95.1%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 25 84.0%
STS 3,764 98.5%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 20 100%
STS 3,529 98.9%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 2 100%
STS 530 91.1%
Number of surgeries Survival rate
Doernbecher 15 80%
STS 2,442 88.2%

Days in the hospital

Doernbecher STS
Off-bypass coarctation 4.0 13.9
VSD 5.0 11.1
TOF 7.0 12.5
Complete AVC 8.0 17.4
ASO 15.0 16.9
ASO + VSD 17.0 20.4
Glenn 7.0 19.2
Fontan 11.0 12.2
Truncus 35.0 35.5
Norwood 40.5 57.9

Survival by surgery category, Jan. 1, 2019-Dec. 31, 2022

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery use STAT categories to group surgeries by risk of mortality. Categories are on a five-tier scale: STAT Category 1 is associated with surgeries that have the least risk, STAT Category 5 with surgeries that have the most. The categories are based on data from tens of thousands of surgeries. 

Doernbecher survival rate STS survival rate
STAT 1 99.7% 99.4%
STAT 2 95.6% 98.1%
STAT 3 93.1% 96.5%
STAT 4 97.4% 92.2%
STAT 5 83.3% 85.3%