Treatment of children was not part of the institute’s original plans. It was evident, however, that a heart institute of this size would also be obliged to turn its attention to the demanding field of congenital heart defects as well as heart disease in patients of all ages. Although operations were actually performed on children right from the start, a pediatric cardiology unit for modern care of congenital heart defects in infants and for diagnostics and pre-operative and post-operative therapy had yet to be established.

This was done in the period after 1988, following the appointment of Prof. Peter E. Lange who at first had to work under very makeshift conditions until a modern, newly-built pediatric ward was opened in 1993. Moreover, it was foreseeable that the number of adults with congenital heart defects requiring lifelong follow-up treatment after surgery in childhood would continually increase, and there was no hospital in Germany at the time which met the necessary staffing and organizational requirements. The newly founded department of the GHI was therefore called the "Department for Congenital Heart Defects/Pediatric Cardiology" and was the first of its kind nationwide. It also sparked a discussion on care of patients in the category "adults with congenital heart defects", an issue on which cardiologists and pediatric cardiologists have only recently found a consensus.

This department rapidly developed into the largest of its kind not only in Germany, but in all of Europe as well. Prof. Peter E. Lange also provisionally assumed the post of head of the corresponding clinic at the Charité hospital and, after his retirement, his successor Prof. Felix Berger assumed the combined post of director of both the Charité clinic and the GHI clinic.

Up to now, more than 15,000 patients, mainly infants and children, have been treated as inpatients, more than 7,000 of these have undergone surgery, a large number of pioneering developments have been contributed, and the highest number of heart transplantations in Germany and the highest number of "artificial heart" transplantations on children in the world have been carried out.

Special arrangements for patients and parents, such as "rooming-in" and the Ronald McDonald House for parents in the immediate vicinity of the Heart Institute, as well as a special pediatric rehabilitation programme, round off the wide range of services offered by this modern, internationally renowned and highly efficient clinic.

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