This post is authored by Kathy Jenkins, MD, MPH, FACC, chair of the Adult Congenital and Pediatric Cardiology Council and Section.

In our profession it is always pleasing when years of efforts and advocacy pay off and we finally get a “win.”  In this case, the win is for congenital heart disease (CHD) providers and patients since the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has announced it will create a physician certification in the Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) subspecialty (read more about the announcement here).

CHD is the number one birth defect in the U.S., affecting nearly 40,000 of the nearly 4 million live births each year. Thanks to advances in treatment in care, the number of children with CHD living into adulthood is rapidly growing. Adult CHD patients, who have surpassed the number of pediatric patients, generally require life-long specialized care due to their complex anatomic and physiologic outcomes.  As the US  ACHD population is estimated to exceed one million adult congenital heart disease (CHD) patients, it is crucial to ensure these patients receive appropriate care from adult congenital cardiologists as they transition out of pediatric care.

For more than a decade, the ACC has been spearheading a multi-society effort to establish a subspecialty certification in ACHD. At the ACC’s 32nd Bethesda Conference in Oct. 2000, the development of an exam and corresponding certification in ACHD administered through the ABIM became a goal and participants outlined a need for a comprehensive strategy for ensuring an adequate and appropriately-trained ACHD workforce given the rapidly increasing ACHD patient population.

Establishing a nationally recognized training pathway and a certification will ensure ACHD patients seeking ACHD care will be able to seek out care from a specialty trained cardiologist. Likewise, by standardizing the training, knowledge and competencies needed, cardiologists specializing in ACHD will have a defined training curriculum and a nationally recognized board examination to validate this certification.

Moving forward, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is in the process of developing accreditation standards for training programs with the expectation that the certification exam will be available within the next three years.

This is great news for the College and the CHD community at large and we should all be proud of the role we have played to date and should be excited about what future opportunities will hold.  On behalf of the Council I am grateful to the many ACC members and the multi-society stakeholder partners who contributed countless hours to this effort. We especially thank pediatric and adult congenital cardiology leaders Gerard Martin, MD, FACC, who spearheaded the effort to petition ABIM and ABP, and Michael Landzberg, MD, FACC, Curt Daniels, MD, FACC and Thomas Graham, MD, FACC who co-chaired the petition writing groups and were true stewards of this effort.

For more information about ACC’s CHD activities and efforts, visit CardioSource.org/ACPC. Also be sure to check out the recent JACC President’s Page “The ACC: Taking on Congenital Heart Disease and Winning!” which I co-wrote with ACC President William Zoghbi, MD, FACC.