UPMC Children’s Heart Institute New Facility Expands Cardiac Imaging Capabilities for Patient Care and Research

The new Heart Institute at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh officially opens June 4, 2026, and consolidates cardiac catheterization, cardiac MRI, electrophysiology, procedural recovery, and cardiac anesthesia support within a single integrated environment designed specifically around the clinical and operational demands of a high-volume, high-acuity congenital cardiac disease program. A second phase, opening in 2027, will add new space for all of the Heart Institute’s specialized outpatient clinics, an expanded echocardiography laboratory, and a new pediatric cardiac rehabilitation program.

At the center of the new facility's procedural floor is an imaging infrastructure that significantly expands what the Heart Institute can offer and how it will deliver patient care in the coming decades. A dedicated 1.5 Tesla Philips^® Ambition^® cardiac MRI unit is part of a new catheterization suite enabling integrated imaging and interventional workflows that were not previously possible. The new suite is one of only a handful in the United States. Two additional new catheterization suites with biplane fluoroscopy are part of the new facility, along with 14 exam rooms and eight echocardiogram labs, among other features and technology.

"This new facility brings together the procedural, imaging, and clinical resources that we rely on to care for patients with complex congenital heart disease. When those programs are working in close proximity, it becomes much easier for the teams involved in their care to coordinate diagnostic information and procedural decision making," says Laura Olivieri, MD, director of noninvasive cardiac imaging at the Heart Institute.

New Cardiac MRI Suite Provides Dedicated Access and Expanded Capacity

The cardiac MRI program at the UPMC Children’s Heart Institute has grown from approximately 150 studies a year before 2020 to more than 600 in 2025. The MRI suite will be in use by the Heart Institute five days a week during core operating hours and also available to the hospital and radiology teams for other use outside those dedicated times as a shared asset. Pediatric cardiac anesthesia coverage for sedated imaging studies will expand to two full days per week.

"Cardiac MRI has become a much more important tool in how we evaluate congenital heart disease. We use it to guide decisions about catheterization, surgery, and medical management. Having a dedicated MRI unit and additional resources from cardiac anesthesia will significantly expand our ability to get that information when it's needed,” says Adam Christopher, MD, director of cardiac MRI and CT at the UPMC Children’s Heart Institute.

The cardiac MRI program at the UPMC Children’s Heart Institute uses individualized imaging protocols for each patient, with protocol planning communicated to the full imaging team before each study. The day before each scan, one of the imaging physicians sends a protocol to the technologist and nursing staff that includes the patient's history, the reason for referral, and the specific sequences to be run.

"I think of it as a virtual huddle. The process gets everybody on the same page. This is the patient, what they are here for, and the imaging we need,” Dr. Christopher says. "When you approach each study in a focused, patient-specific way and return data in a format that is actionable for the ordering physician, the demand follows. Referring providers who have had that experience come back with more patients who could benefit from cardiac MRI."

Co-Located MRI and Catheterization Brings Sequential and Integrated Workflows

The new co-located cardiac catheterization laboratory and state-of-the-art MRI will offer the Heart Institute teams an array of new clinical possibilities for patients. Sequential workflows in which patients undergo cardiac MRI immediately before a planned catheterization can be done under the same anesthesia event. Co-location of the MRI with the catheterization lab provides the opportunity to obtain a radiation-free anatomical and hemodynamic picture of what is happening with the patient immediately before the catheterization begins, providing the interventional team with additional clinical insights to guide the procedure. In the future, the teams will be able to take MRI reconstructions and overlay them onto fluoroscopic images during the procedure to support real-time guidance.

A substantial portion of most catheterizations is spent gathering diagnostic data about the patient, including angiography to measure pulmonary artery dimensions, flow splits, and pressure gradients. Each of those angiographic acquisitions carries radiation and contrast load. MRI can provide much of that same data without either, so that when the patient moves from the MRI suite to the catheterization laboratory, the team enters the procedure with the anatomical and hemodynamic picture already in hand.

"As we care for increasingly complex patients with congenital heart disease of all ages, patients can now have one sedation, undergo a cardiac MRI, and move directly to the catheterization laboratory for hemodynamic data or an intervention. One sedation, one day away from school or work, one anesthesia session. That will make a real impact on patient care and satisfaction,” Dr. Olivieri says.

The coordinated approach also allows the imaging and catheterization teams to review MRI findings together while the patient is still in the procedural environment, supporting real-time decision making before and during the catheterization.

"It is not that we cannot coordinate imaging and catheterization now. We can, and we do. But it requires a great deal of logistical effort because those services are in different locations with different teams. The new facility removes those barriers. What was possible but costly to arrange now becomes straightforward,” Dr. Christopher says.

Radiation Reduction and MRI-Guided Catheterization

Congenital heart disease patients accumulate ionizing radiation exposure across a lifetime of CT scans, catheterizations, fluoroscopy, and plain radiographs. The accumulation can be substantial compared to the general population and it carries obvious risks. The use of pre-procedural MRI can help to reduce that exposure.

One of the longer-term objectives at the Heart Institute is to employ MRI-guided cardiac catheterization. Initial MRI-guided catheterization development will focus on patient populations best suited to the approach, including heart transplant recipients undergoing surveillance catheterizations, patients with pulmonary hypertension, and older children with cardiomyopathy. MRI provides superior soft tissue and myocardial visualization compared with fluoroscopy, making these patient populations well suited to the modality.

"For congenital heart disease patients who may undergo multiple procedures over the course of their lives, reducing radiation exposure is an important goal. You probably do not need the spatial resolution of x-ray to do everything you need to do in the catheterization laboratory anyway. The MRI-guided programs that have developed elsewhere show that you can be strategic about which patients and which procedures you do under MRI guidance,” Dr. Christopher says.

The UPMC Children’s Heart Institute also plans to incorporate routine pre-procedural cardiac MRI into the evaluation of single-ventricle patients before their Fontan surgery to improve risk stratification and inform catheterization planning.

Lymphatic Intervention Program

The co-location of MRI and cardiac catheterization also enables the development of a lymphatic intervention program at the UPMC Children’s Heart Institute. Interventional cardiologist, Lauren Carlozzi, MD, is leading this effort to develop the program that will launch later in 2026 and become one of only a handful in the United States equipped to deal with this frequent and often unrecognized and treated complication, particularly in patients with single ventricle physiology. Lymphatic evaluation and treatment requires simultaneous catheter-based access and MRI visualization and will be made possible now because of the infrastructure of the new Heart Institute facility.

Pediatric-Specific MRI Technology and Patient Experience

Standard cardiac MRI protocols require repeated breath holds of 10 to 15 seconds per dynamic image sequence. The approach is workable for cooperative adults but unreliable in children younger than approximately eight to 10 years of age. Because of this, younger children needing MRI usually have to have their imaging under sedation.

However, the new Philips Ambition MRI system at the Heart Institute incorporates advanced motion-correction technology that enables free-breathing acquisition for many cardiac MRI sequences, reducing the need for sedation in school-age patients and improving image quality in those who cannot sustain reliable breath holds.

"Cardiac MRI is technically challenging in a way that imaging other organs is not. The heart is beating continuously, so we gate acquisition to the cardiac cycle using ECG. But the patient is also breathing, which means that beating heart is simultaneously moving through space with every breath. Every sequence has to account for both motions at once. The motion-correction technology in the new system allows us to acquire high-quality images while the patient breathes normally, without the repeated breath holds that have always been the limiting factor for younger patients,” Dr. Christopher says.

Additionally, the new MRI suite includes video goggles that allow patients to select a movie before entering the scanner, and a room environment designed around the pediatric experience. Children can choose the ambient lighting color as they enter, and an animated character on the wall guides them through the space.

"At a standard adult cardiac MRI, you get headphones and automated instructions telling you when to breathe in, breathe out, and hold. Now take that same setup and put a seven-year-old with ADHD on the table. It is not going to work. The environment in the new suite is designed so that the child is engaged and calm from the moment they walk in. Combined with the free-breathing capability, we can get through a complete study without ever interrupting what they are watching. Basically, the process is over before they realize it,” Dr. Christopher says

Patient Referrals and Consultations

To refer a patient to the Heart Institute at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh or for general questions or inquiries, please call 412-692-5540 or email us at CHPHeartReferral@chp.edu. You can also visit our Health Care Providers page for detailed referral information for cardiology specialists, emergency needs, cardiothoracic surgery, fetal and prenatal cardiology, and adult congenital heart disease.