P1.233: Big Dreams for Tiny Hearts: A Virtual Community of Practice and Interprofessional Education Initiative in Neonatal Cardiology

Background: Management of critical congenital heart disease (cCHD) in neonates is complex and requires collaboration between neonatal-perinatal medicine and pediatric cardiology subspecialists. Traditional training programs often operate in silos, limiting interprofessional competency development. The Big Dreams for Tiny Hearts initiative was developed as a cross-disciplinary, virtual education platform to bridge this gap by fostering knowledge exchange and collaborative learning between professionals and trainees in both specialties. This initiative sought to facilitate and evaluate interprofessional education (IPE) between neonatology and pediatric cardiology trainees within a virtual community of practice (VCoP), promoting shared learning, cross-specialty collaboration, and improved educational outcomes in neonatal cardiology through synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences.

Methods: Using Wenger’s VCoP framework and Kern’s six-step process for curriculum development, we designed an online educational series hosted on the Heart University platform. Heart University is a free, online resource providing curated educational content for clinicians globally. Educational content included live and asynchronous webinars, case-based discussions, and physiology-based modules focused on various aspects of clinical care of neonatal cCHD. The target audience included trainees and physicians from neonatology and pediatric cardiology. Learning activities were structured to enable participants to learn with, from, and about each other's disciplines. Metrics of engagement included registration, live attendance, and video views across sessions. Content areas spanned the management in the perinatal period, family-centered care, and pathophysiology.

Results: Across ten sessions from December 2023 to March 2025, the initiative reached 4,080 registered participants with 2,096 live attendees and 1,720 asynchronous video views (Figure 1). Highly viewed sessions included the Principles of Physiology series, Delivery Planning, and Delivery Room Management. Webinar attendees represent 79 unique countries with a total of 1,190 hours of live content engagement.

Conclusion: The observed sustained and increasing participation in the Big Dreams for Tiny Hearts initiative supports the commitment to IPE within the neonatology and pediatric cardiology communities. This initiative created an engaging, scalable model for cross-disciplinary collaboration within a VCoP. These findings support the expansion of virtual, case-based interprofessional learning models to improve clinical education and teamwork in neonatal cardiac care. Future studies should evaluate the impact of this initiative with individual and center-based practices for neonatal cCHD. Further expansion of the initiative will also include pediatric critical care and anesthesia stakeholders to develop a more comprehensive curriculum.