$1 Million Gift to Support Earlier CHD Detection

Washington, DC (PRWEB ) May 15, 2008 -- The Elsie & Marvin Dekelboum Family Foundation has announced a gift of $1 million to Children’s National Medical Center. The gift will allow the Children’s National Heart Institute to launch a Congenital Heart Defect Screening Study. Children’s National will name a three-bed bay in the new Cardiac Intensive Care Unit in honor of the Elsie & Marvin Dekelboum Family Foundation.

The heart defect screening study will focus on the effectiveness of an inexpensive device called a pulse oxymeter that could help identify more than 80 percent of life-threatening congenital heart defects. If initial findings are validated, the Dekelboum gift will enable Children’s National to promote its use in hospitals across the country and around the world – improving early detection and health outcomes for children everywhere.