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NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital has opened The Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Infant Cardiac Unit. The new, state-of-the-art, 17-bed unit is solely dedicated to infant cardiac care (0-3 months old) and is the first of its kind in the United States. Its construction was made possible by a $5,000,000 gift in dedication to Vivian and Seymour Milstein by their grandchildren, including Joshua, Toby and Laurence.

The Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Infant Cardiac Unit was designed with family-centered care in mind. The unit is staffed by a highly skilled, multidisciplinary team of specialists in neonatal cardiac intensive care. It contains the most advanced support technology, including specialized modes of ventilation for the smallest patients, ECMO/Cardiac Assist Devices such as the Berlin Heart, and 3-D printing to help guide surgery. Its five private rooms can accommodate overnight stays by parents.

“The Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Infant Cardiac Unit represents a groundbreaking investment in our youngest and most vulnerable patients,” said Dr. Steven J. Corwin, president and chief executive officer of NewYork-Presbyterian. “The complex heart conditions of these patients require the most comprehensive, compassionate treatment available. With this new unit, we will be able to better provide world-class care to infant cardiac patients at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital for generations to come.”

“We came together to continue our family’s legacy of supporting the hospital,” said Toby Milstein. “It means so much to us to honor our grandparents by helping to provide the very best heart care to the next generation of patients. NewYork-Presbyterian has long been a leader in infant cardiac care, and we are thrilled to bolster the hospital’s ability to deliver this lifesaving care to infants who need it.”

“What differentiates this unit is not just the expert surgeon who can perform complicated open heart surgeries on a 3 lb. baby, it’s about the comprehensive multidisciplinary team who are all experts in neonatal care,” said Dr. Emile Bacha, director of congenital and pediatric cardiac surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, chief of the division of cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

“This newly dedicated unit fosters an advanced, multidisciplinary approach to providing specialized neonatal cardiac intensive care,” said Dr. Ganga Krishnamurthy, Medical Director of the Infant Cardiac Unit and the Garrett Isaac Neubauer Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center. “It is an incredible advance for infants with severe congenital heart disease.”

The unit is located in the NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, a designated Level 4 New York State Regional Perinatal Center that already boasts an outstanding neonatal intensive care unit.

The hospital performs up to 750 pediatric and congenital heart defect surgeries including 130 neonatal cardiac surgeries per year, making it the largest congenital heart defect referral center in the region, with the lowest mortality rate for pediatric heart surgery in the state. The hospital cares for infants with conditions including extreme prematurity, respiratory failures, very low birth weight, congenital heart disease and other complex congenital abnormalities that may require surgery. Of the some 5,000 deliveries each year, more than half are designated as high-risk or increased risk; and of the more than 1,100 critically-ill infants cared for every year, approximately 30 percent are highly complex cases transferred from other centers.

A leader in research and patient care since it was established as the Babies Hospital in 1887, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital opened in 2003 as an innovative facility with critical and neonatal intensive care facilities, providing the highest quality care for pediatric patients from around the region. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties in the 2017-18 U.S. News & World Report “Best Children's Hospitals” survey — more than any other children’s hospital in the New York metropolitan area.

NewYork-Presbyterian

NewYork-Presbyterian is one of the nation’s most comprehensive, integrated academic healthcare delivery systems, whose organizations are dedicated to providing the highest quality, most compassionate care and service to patients in the New York metropolitan area, nationally, and throughout the globe. In collaboration with two renowned medical schools, Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian is consistently recognized as a leader in medical education, groundbreaking research and innovative, patient-centered clinical care.

NewYork-Presbyterian has four major divisions:

• NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked #1 in the New York metropolitan area by U.S. News and World Report and repeatedly named to the Honor Roll of “America’s Best Hospitals.”
• NewYork-Presbyterian Regional Hospital Network comprises hospitals and other facilities in the New York metropolitan region.
• NewYork-Presbyterian Physician Services, which connects medical experts with patients in their communities.
• NewYork-Presbyterian Community and Population Health, encompassing ambulatory care network sites and community healthcare initiatives, including NewYork Quality Care, the Accountable Care Organization jointly established by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia.

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