Cath Lab

Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach shares a medical campus with Long Beach Memorial. The pediatric cardiac center at Miller Children’s, partners with the MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute (MHVI) at Long Beach Memorial, to deliver state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization treatment to children and adolescents with congenital and acquired heart disorders. There is a dedicated pediatric cath lab that is used solely for the care of kids and their heart care.

A pediatric cardiologist and a specialized pediatric trained cath lab team performs diagnostic and therapeutic angiographic cardiovascular procedures for obtaining physiologic, pathologic and angiographic data of pediatric heart conditions. All of the pediatric cath lab cases are handled by this exclusive team.

Treatment Process

A dedicated pediatric clinical nurse specialist consults with families, determines their needs and has them meet with Child Life. A Child Life Specialist will prepare the child and family for the catheterization procedure and answer any questions. Patients will receive a physical exam and a standard work-up, and are assessed by the cath lab nurse upon admission to the cath lab.

Parents can stay with their child all the way up to when the child needs to enter the Cath Lab. Once inside, the child will be given general anesthesia before the procedures are started.