The Services

The proportion of adult patients for inpatient therapy (surgery, diagnostic cardiac catheter or interventional cardiac catheter) is between 15 and 25%. Only in the outpatient sector is this proportion almost 50%, which again underlines the fact that patients with congenital heart defects in adulthood have a high demand for specialized interdisciplinary care. As a certified supraregional center with special expertise in the treatment of these EMAH patients (EMAH = adults with congenital heart defects), we represent an important component in the medical care of these often multimorbid patients. For 9 years now, we have been a supra-regional center for adults with congenital heart defects certified by the professional associations DGPK, DGK and DGTHG.

The trend to shift more and more diagnostics and therapy from school age to the outpatient sector can be seen in the figures. Ideally, all heart defects that need to be corrected will have been operated on by the time school age is reached, so that, in addition to the need for any inpatient follow-up treatment, outpatient care is clearly in the foreground. This trend remains clearly visible into middle adulthood. From the age of 50 onwards there is a renewed increase in the need for inpatient care, which is accompanied by an increase in the intensity of disease in adults with congenital heart defects (EMAH), especially those with a complex or multiple pre-operated heart defect.