Beverly Grove-based Cedars-Sinai Health System last month took two steps to boost some of its cardiac care programs.

The local health care giant opened an aortic surveillance clinic for the evaluation and long-term monitoring of patients with enlarged aortas, or aortic aneurysms, for whom surgery may not be necessary.

Separately, Cedars-Sinai’s Guerin Children’s center has hired David Epstein, a pediatric care specialist from East Hollywood-based Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, as its new director of pediatric and congenital cardiac intensive care.

The aortic surveillance clinic is the newest offering from the Smidt Heart Institute’s aortic program, an interdisciplinary team of cardiologists, cardiac and vascular surgeons, radiologists, genetic counselors and nurses treating the full spectrum of aortic disorders. The aorta is the main blood vessel carrying oxygen from the heart to other parts of the body.

“When patients hear that they have an aortic aneurysm, they often think they are ticking time bombs, but that is not always the case,” said Robbin Cohen, professor of cardiac surgery and director of the cardiac surgery program at Huntington Health in Pasadena, a Cedars-Sinai affiliate.

“Through the aortic surveillance clinic, we offer reassurance that they are being carefully and closely monitored and that proper therapy, including surgery, will be offered if needed,” Cohen added.

The clinic will also provide care for patients suffering from genetic disorders involving the aorta or aortic valve and who are at high risk of developing an enlarged aorta or tears or other disruptions in the aorta.

“We are pleased to have the ability to focus on a subset of patients when they don’t need surgery – and educate them on how to prevent acute aortic events, which can be fatal,” said Joanna Chikwe, chair of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at the Smidt Institute.

At Guerin Children’s, Epstein will direct intensive care and collaborate with cardiologists, surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists and other health care professionals who specialize in caring for children with a heart condition.