Isabella Mariel Villareal Díaz showed no signs of a heart condition when she was born two years ago.

For her first year, she developed normally — and then her health began to deteriorate. After several studies, doctors in her native Puerto Rico diagnosed her with Dilated Cardiomyopathy, a condition where the left side of her heart was too big for her age and did not work properly.

“We really don’t know if she was born with the condition and if she was getting worse until the moment we saw her first symptoms,” says Yarelys Díaz Rivera, Isabella Mariel’s mother.

The toddler’s hospital in Puerto Rico did not have the necessary resources to address Isabella Mariel’s disease, but doctors told her family of UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where the cardiology team could give Isabella Mariel the treatment she needed.

“We chose this hospital due to the fact that the PR doctors told us about how excellent the hospital was in terms of transplants, and although Isabella did not come for a transplant as a first option, that was one of the possibilities,” Diaz Rivera says.

That possibility became a reality in November when Isabella Mariel, who spent seven months hospitalized at UPMC Children’s, underwent a heart transplant. The 5½-hour surgery was led by Dr. Melita Viegas, who previously operated on Isabella Mariel to implant a left ventricular assist device that kept the toddler’s heart pumping and prepared her body for the transplant.

“During that time, the medical staff, nurses, administrative staff, cleaning staff, in short, all, made us feel special. The hospital was our home for all that time and the staff made it feel like a home,” Diaz Rivera recalls. “I have so much to be grateful for, that words would not be enough to express how grateful we are as a family for the opportunity of life that was given to my daughter.”

Isabella Mariel and her family will spend the next year in Pittsburgh as the 2-year-old completes her post-operative treatments. At home waiting for her are her 12-year-old twin siblings, Andrea and Diego.

“For us as parents, it is of utmost importance to follow all the recommendations and follow-ups that Isabella requires to make sure she has quality of life, that she can grow, develop and function in society,” Díaz Rivera says. “The UPMC Children’s Heart Institute means life to us.”

And soon, the hospital will be able to further enhance patient experiences like Isabella Mariel’s, as well as advance its clinical care and research capabilities.

In December, UPMC broke ground on a new Heart Institute. To be built on UPMC Children’s Lawrenceville campus, the 50,000-square-foot, three-story addition now under construction will house a state-of-the-art clinical space with new cardiac catheterization labs, an intraoperative MRI and inpatient and outpatient procedural, diagnostic and consultation spaces, as well as additional waiting and reception rooms.

UPMC Children’s Hospital Foundation has currently raised nearly $20 million, but needs to reach a total of $31 million in funding. Construction is anticipated to be completed in early 2026.

“With this new facility, we will further advance our specialty care for our patients and families who travel here from near and far and who trust us to care for their children,” says Leslie Davis, president and CEO of UPMC, in a statement. “This means more opportunities to improve and save more children’s lives as a top destination for pediatric cardiology.”

Ranked eighth in the country by U.S. News & World Report, UPMC Children’s Cardiology and heart surgery department provides comprehensive care to more than 18,000 patients with congenital conditions throughout their lives, from prenatal through adulthood.

In the last year alone, UPMC Children’s cardiology team performed more than 600 heart surgeries, proving there is a huge need for the hospital’s resources and expertise.

A pediatric interventional cardiologist, Dr. Bryan Goldstein says he came to UPMC Children’s in 2019 with the goal of improving the hospital’s existing heart catheterization lab, including adding a cardiac MRI unit. It soon became clear the department couldn’t grow the program in the way the staff wanted within the building’s current physical constraints.

“As we’ve grown in reputation and volume, not only taking care of patients in the city and the region, but also from outside the state and outside the country, which we’re very humbled to do, we’ve invested in a quality outcome and invested in them and their families,” Goldstein says. “Our facilities weren’t really caught up to that model.”

Goldstein notes UPMC Children’s often takes on cases other hospitals reject because of their complexity; the new facility will allow UPMC Children’s to accept even more rare cases for patients who have nowhere else to turn. The advanced technology and equipment housed in the new facility also is expected to help us to bring in top researchers, surgeons and staff.

As of right now, heart patients have to go to multiple floors of the hospital for different tests. In the new facility, everything heart related will be in one location, significantly reducing stress on families and the time in between testing and treatments — while creating an additional layer of safety.

“At the new center, you’ll come in and all the people taking care of you will be heart folks,” Goldstein says. “You’ll recover in the space where you started, or you go home. It makes things more patient- and family-centered, and there are a lot of layers of safety in that model.

“More importantly, we’ll be able to offer things we could not offer today.”

Sponsored content is created and paid for by the marketer.