Children’s HeartLink is hosting a scientific summit in Minneapolis on October 26, 2019.
Over 50 leaders in global health and pediatric cardiac care will attend the event, many of them from the countries where we work: Brazil, China, India, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The goal of this summit is to outline priorities for pediatric cardiac care and future strategic direction for Children’s HeartLink and our partners around the world.
“We are hosting this summit in conjunction with our 50th anniversary,” says Children’s HeartLink President Jackie Boucher. “It is no surprise that we got our start in Minnesota, a world leader in pediatric heart surgery, medical device development and global philanthropy—and that we have continued to grow and expand our reach globally. As a leader in this field, we felt this was the right time and place to bring together our partners and other global experts in this field, to discuss ways we can improve access to care for children who need treatment for congenital heart disease.”
Children’s HeartLink focuses on training in-country medical providers in pediatric cardiac care. Last fiscal year alone, 4,000 in-country medical providers were trained and went on to serve 171,000 children. The training is done in partnerships with top medical volunteer teams in the US, Canada and the UK.
“The summit discussions will focus on the four areas we’ve identified that need urgent attention globally: increasing capacity to care for children, training the medical workforce, closing the data gap, and financing,” says our Vice President of Global Strategy and Advocacy Bistra Zheleva. These were the four recommendations highlighted in The Invisible Child, a policy paper series we published about childhood heart disease and the global health agenda. The call to action in the final brief was featured in The Lancet and The BMJ.