VCU's Children's Heart Center lab gains triple accreditation

By Michael Ford
University News Services

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Commonwealth University’s Children’s Heart Center Noninvasive Laboratory has earned national accreditation in pediatric-transthoracic, pediatric-transesophageal and fetal echocardiography from the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories. The VCU lab is now among just five U.S. sites – and the only one east of the Mississippi River – to be accredited in all three areas of pediatric echocardiography.

The Children’s Heart Center Noninvasive Laboratory, part of VCU’s Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, is the only pediatric laboratory at an academic medical center in the Mid-Atlantic region, which includes Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Washington, D.C. to earn ICEAL accreditation for its quality patient care and diagnostic testing in pediatric echocardiography. This complex imaging technique uses high-frequency sound waves to produce ultrasound images of the heart, so physicians can assess its structure and blood flow. The Children’s Heart Center laboratory also is the only site in the region to have earned accreditation in fetal echocardiography, a technique that identifies congenital heart diseases in the unborn child.

ICEAL’s accreditation reflects high standards of training, experience and continuing education for all physicians and sonographers. Accredited labs meet written standards for laboratory safety, patient confidentiality and quality assurance. These labs also must comply in areas of examination data archiving, interpretation, reports and records, in addition to requirements for its physical layout, safety and equipment maintenance.

VCU’s triple accreditation assures quality of care to patients and their families. "As a patient, or parent of a patient, the accreditation guarantees that you are at a laboratory that’s really at the top on technique, education and quality of imaging," said Mary T. Donofrio, M.D., assistant professor of pediatric cardiology and director of perinatal cardiology and the Noninvasive Laboratory. "Parents can be assured their child is having a test performed in a laboratory that has achieved excellence."

Based in Columbia Md., ICEAL is a national organization that provides a method for echocardiography laboratories to evaluate and demonstrate the level of patient care they provide.

VCU is a Carnegie Research-Extensive University – the top category for U.S. research universities. VCU ranks among the nation’s top 100 universities in sponsored research, with nearly $120 million in annual funding. With more than 23,500 students, VCU is the largest public urban doctoral-granting university in Virginia. The university offers 156 degree and certificate programs in 11 schools and one college.