Considerations for Newborn Screening for Critical Congenital Heart Disease in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Bistra Zheleva; Sreehari M Nair; Adriana Dobrzycka; Annamarie Saarinen

doi:10.3390/ijns6020049

Considerations for Newborn Screening for Critical Congenital Heart Disease in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Int J Neonatal Screen. 2020 Jun 14;6(2):49. doi: 10.3390/ijns6020049. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Authors

Bistra Zheleva¹, Sreehari M Nair², Adriana Dobrzycka¹, Annamarie Saarinen³

Affiliations

¹ Children's HeartLink, Minneapolis, MN 55436, USA; adriana@childrensheartlink.org.
² National Health Mission, Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram 695 035, India; drsreeharim@gmail.com.
³ Newborn Foundation, Minneapolis, MN 55116, USA; annamarie@newbornfoundation.org.

Abstract

We propose several considerations for implementation of critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) screening for low- and middle-income countries to assess health system readiness for countries that may not have all the downstream capacity needed for treatment of CCHD. The recommendations include: (1) assessment of secondary and tertiary level CHD health services, (2) assessment of birth delivery center processes and staff training needs, (3) data collection on implementation and quality surgical outcomes, (4) budgetary consideration, and (5) consideration of the CCHD screening service as part of the overall patient care continuum.

Keywords: congenital heart disease; congenital heart surgery; critical congenital heart disease; population health; pulse oximetry.