Our vision for a healthier future starts with the people who will be leading it someday soon.
Children. So much starts with them, including the future we’re working toward. How can we improve children’s health? And how can we build on these improvements to reach as many of them as possible, all over the world?
Our ideas range from very big to very, very, very small.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to children’s health, and so we explore all options available to us to advance it.
Here are the «Ƶ health tech innovations, products and educational partnerships through which we’re helping kids every day.
Care that Comes from the Heart
Let’s start with two innovations that go straight to the heart.
The first is our — the world’s smallest mechanical heart valve — which was developed to address an unmet need for high-risk pediatric patients, often those with complex heart defects.
It was a case of our team taking on a titanic challenge: Re-engineering our existing mechanical heart valves to help young children who had limited options.
We rose to a different challenge to help premature infants born with a persistent patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), an opening in the heart that increases the blood flow to the lungs and workload on the heart, which puts babies’ health at risk.
Our Amplatzer Piccolo Occluder for PDA closure, smaller than a pea in size, helps treat PDA without the need for open-heart surgery.
It’s hard to overstate the impact of these devices — and not just on the patients who receive them.
“Working on a device specifically designed for children takes the work to another level,” said Chad Green, director of research and development for cardiac surgery in «Ƶ’s Structural Heart business. “Going to work every day thinking my work will help people is great. Knowing it will help children makes it that much better.”
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