The Cardiac Developmental Outcomes program (CDOP) provides routine longitudinal neurodevelopmental follow up by board-certified developmental-behavioral pediatricians, neurodevelopmental disability pediatricians and child psychologists for all children who undergo surgery for congenital heart disease during the first three months of life. The CDOP team also provides longitudinal monitoring for children and adolescents with congenital heart disease and neurodevelopmental concerns who are referred by pediatric cardiologists and other providers. Our program is the most mature and comprehensive developmental outcomes program in Texas and we see not only Texas Children’s Hospital patients, but also children from other programs across the state.
Beginning in 2019, developmental care rounds for infants in the intensive care unit (ICU) has allowed our families to receive support and developmental guidance prior to discharge home and their outpatient evaluation. This has also allowed our team to collaborate with our ICU colleagues to improve care. As part of our outpatient program, we continue to provide educational programming for our families as well as access to social workers and community resources.
In the past year, we have published and presented multiple projects and have many in progress. These include prospective cohort studies of neurodevelopment and brain injury in infants undergoing surgery for congenital heart disease, as well as research on the rates of referrals for infants evaluated in our program, risk factors for neurodevelopmental impairment including method of feeding at discharge, and rates of autism spectrum disorder in our clinic population.
