Heartpedia App, a tool for visualization of congenital heart defects

Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most common congenital anomaly in the US, according to CDC[1], affecting nearly 1% of―or about 40,000―births per year in the United States. About a quarter of these defects is critical congenital heart defects, requiring a surgery or other procedures in baby's first year of life. If not surgically corrected, almost all of these critical CHD are fatal.
These defects, ranging from hypoplastic left heart syndrome, coarctation of the aorta to the transposition of the great arteries, often require multiple-staged surgical corrections, which are complex, especially to medical students on their pediatric rotations. Another problem with congenital heart defects is that they can be difficult to visualize and explain. 

For the purpose of better visualization and explanation of CHD and correction methods, Cincinnati Children's Hospital created Heartpedia app, which allows users to interact with 3D models of pediatric heart anomalies and defects. Medical providers may use these anatomically correct models as a visual learning tool to help educate patients and families on specific defects and repairs. The patients and families, who want to learn more on their own, or to share the details of a defect with concerned friends and family, may find Heartpedia app useful as well.

The app opens to a home screen with a pictorial list of 12 included congenital heart conditions, listed alphabetically from atrial to ventricular septal defect.

Tapping on the picture of the defect, opens a 3D model of the heart with the particular defect. There are three view types for each model: Normal, Defect and Repair, which are accessible via tabs above the model. Defect view opens first by default. There, you can see what's wrong with a particular CHD. Each defect is shown on a heart model with detailed chambers and great vessels. Each part on the model is labeled by default, which can be turned on and off. 

You can rotate the model in all directions with a swipe, or you can zoom in to see more details. Another handy option is 'Heart Dissection' icon, which gives you an option to switch the view from external and to peek inside the heart. For example, if you chose to view hypoplastic left heart syndrome, you may 'dissect' the model and look into the left ventricular outflow tract, short axis, or hypoplastic aortic arch + PDA. In case of coarctation of the aorta, besides external view, you can look into coarctation lumen view as well. Internal views are different for each defect, showing corresponding parts of the heart.

There are also two more tabs, Normal and Repair. With Normal tab, you can see how normal heart looks like. You can switch between tabs to compare anatomically normal heart with a defect heart and to see differences. You can also tap on Repair tab, which gives you an insight in the correction of the defect, i.e. what would be repaired with a surgery.

Normal and Repair views also offer the same functionality and details like Defect view. This means you can see labels of key heart structures, to pan, rotate and zoom into the model, or to toggle between external and various interior heart planes/slices.

Beside with high detailed 3D models, each of the 12 congenital heart defects described in Heartpedia app is explained further with a detailed textual description. Descriptions can be called up by tapping on the leftmost icon, below the each model. Descriptions explain the defects, the associated problems, symptoms, diagnosis, repair, and outcomes, providing useful reference links.

Also, all defects have associated videos from Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, which open within the app, providing better insight and more details about the defects and how they are repaired. The same 3D models are used in the videos, and while the video presentation is more dynamic, 3D models, in our opinion, are more detailed and more suitable for learning.

There are not many downsides with Heartpedia app. The minor issues mostly concern with what we'd like to have. First thing is the social component. While you can share the news that you're using Heartpedia app, there's not option to share multimedia, i.e. models turned into images or videos.

The second thing is more suggestion for future updates than a complaint. It would be nice if models could show a dynamic blood flow as well, which could help illustrate these defects even better. Also, Repair view of a hypoplastic left heart syndrome, we used for this review, only shows the completely repaired heart, while there are, in fact, the different stages of the repair.

These objections are minor and don't spoil our overall impression with this app: Heartpedia is a superb learning tool for both medical workers and parents who want to learn more about CHD.

Benefit: Pediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, medical students and residents rotating through cardiology, and anyone interested in better understanding congenital heart defects. Parents and relatives of children with CHD could also benefit from the information provided in Heartpedia app.