The Kidshearts project focuses on developing work carried out in paediatric cardiac surgery at the Lille University Hospital for the benefit of patients in the Franco-Belgian cross-border area and their relatives.
- 14 August 2019
Kidshearts is a multidisciplinary project that is meeting a very real demand. It allows all our teams to raise their level of skills. This project has a positive impact because the work undertaken in paediatric cardiac surgery improves all areas linked to paediatric surgery. It is a driving force for the other areas, which will then in turn develop their expertise.
The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Lille [Lille University Hospital] and the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc (CUSL) de Bruxelles are joining forces in a major cross-border programme aimed at supporting the creation of a paediatric heart surgery unit at the CHU de Lille by 2020.
Supported by the ARS Hauts-de-France, the CPAM and the Franco-Belgian Observatory of Health, together with involvement from the hospitals of Kortrijk, Ypres, Mouscron and Tournai, it will enable the cross-border population of Hauts-de-France and neighbouring Belgian Flanders to benefit from a local care service.
Promoting accessibility of care
Potentially, 450 young French patients from the inter-region will be able to benefit from this programme. The objective is to improve conditions for caring for new-borns and children, and to facilitate support for families currently forced to travel for hospital stays of about 10 days within the Paris region. Relying on highly specialised teams and a technical platform, the Kidshearts project will rationalise the costs of caring for these patients in a way that ensures the various regions can access care.
Thanks to support from the European Interreg Fund, the teams at the Lille University Hospital will be trained at the university clinics of Saint-Luc de Bruxelles, whose excellence in the care and treatment of congenital and acquired malformations of children is well-known. Cardiac surgeons, intensive care anaesthetists, neonatologists, neonatal and paediatric intensive care units, scrub nurses, anaesthetists and other nurses will visit the Brussels teams from 2018 until the opening of the Lille site in 2020.
Several actions have already been carried out:
a training and learning programme for 28 French doctors and 48 paramedics; care for 260 children with heart defects per year, including about 100 children already cared for in Brussels since April 2018; creation of a European centre of excellence and joint research on congenital heart disease.Building a sustainable collaboration
The University Hospital teams will be supported at the start of the unit by a surgeon and an anaesthetist from the Saint-Luc clinics. Ultimately, the main appeal of the project is the building of a long-term collaboration between the University Hospital of Lille and the Saint-Luc de Bruxelles university clinics. This collaboration will be based on coordinated care pathways and the sharing of professional practices, as well as the collaboration of surgeons depending on their specialist area, irrespective of the original university hospital admitting the patient. It will continue in several forms: exchange of expertise, teaching, research and, finally, sharing of databases to improve the monitoring of children both at the cardiac and neurological levels (neuro-heart project).
At this stage of the project, it is expected to generate at least 25 jobs.
Total investment and European funding
Total investment for the project ‘Kidshearts – Development of paediatric cardiac surgery at CHU de Lille’ is EUR 2 552 789; the European Regional Development Fund contribution is EUR 1 276 394 through the ‘Interreg V-A France-Wallonia-Flanders’ cooperation programme for the 2014–2020 programming period. The investment falls under the priority of "European Territorial Cooperation".