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Big Hands For Little Hearts is an organization recently founded to raise money for russian children who have cardiovascular problems. Visit bh4lh.orgfor more details.

The Mission of Big Hands for Little Hearts is to provide assistance to underserved children with heart disease and their doctors throughout the world.

We help:

identify children with heart disease,

properly assess their condition,

triage operations in order of greatest urgency,

select and arrange the most suitable intervention within the confines of limited resources, and geography,

fund operations, travel and accommodations for family, the purchase of devices, components or medications for these children,

fund the purchase of supplies and equipment that allow local pediatric cardiologists to identify and assess their patients,

organize medical missionary teams to set up centers of excellence in cardiac surgery in underserved populations.

Big Hands for Little Hearts was founded as a 501(c) 3 non-profit foundation this year (2005) and is initiating its efforts in Russia. This is because there is great need for help in Russia and a great potential for rapid improvement in the pediatric cardiac heath care system. For more information on the history and current state of pediatric cardiac care in Russia see History of Russian Pediatric Cardiac Care. As part of this effort, the Dostoevsky family has joined us in the creation of the Dostoevsky Family Children's Heart Fund. Donations to this fund provide us with the ability to perform our mission. The Dostoevsky family is helping to bring awareness to the dire need for care of Russian children with heart disease.

Big Hands for Little Hearts uses the power of the internet, global communication and global market technology to achieve these goals. Its web site is a virtual clearinghouse for children in need of help, their doctors and donors wishing to help. With this strategy, access to the nearly the entire world's children and their doctors is possible as is access to an entire world of caring donors. Families and their doctors can list their child through an internet application with review of clinical data by our cardiologists and surgeons who have access to the latest interventional approaches. Those children deemed in need of help, both medically and financially, are selected. Our cardiologists formulate a plan with the family and their doctor and the cost for that plan is calculated. The child is then placed on the website list in order of urgency and the wait for donations begins. Donors can literally "purchase" a miracle for any child in a "shopping cart" fashion. In all cases, the cost to provide surgery or medications for these children is several orders of magnitude less than it would cost for the same intervention in the developed world. Thus, nearly anyone can make a huge difference in the life of these children with a relatively modest contribution. For any given child, once the full donation is achieved, the child is invited for the intervention.
Big Hands for Little Hearts is sensitive to the need for absolute verification that funds that are raised are used for the purpose they were intended. That is why all children considered for intervention are assessed by our cardiologists and surgeons. Their clinical history, physical exam data, ECG, echocardiogram and financial information is reviewed in detail. Donor funds and amounts are listed along side the child for which they were intended unless anonymity is desired. Once a child has undergone surgery, photographic verification of the child with the recent procedure is posted. These steps assure that funds are used as they were intended so that donors know that their donations made a real difference in a child's life.


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