Heather Van Diest, MPH, LCSW

Heather Van Diest is a licensed clinical social worker in the Texas Center for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease, a clinical partnership between UT Health Austin and Dell Children’s Medical Center. She is also a part of UT Health Austin’s Integrated Behavioral Health care team. She provides and oversees clinical social work activities to ensure high-quality services are delivered to patients with congenital heart disease and their families. Additionally, Van Diest is an assistant professor of practice in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin.

Van Diest earned her Master of Science in social work from The University of Texas at Austin, her second master’s degree in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center and her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Suffolk University. She has extensive experience working with children and families at some of the leading pediatric hospitals in the nation, including the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Seattle Children’s, and M.D. Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital.

Van Diest also participates in and leads research, program development initiatives and quality improvement projects to help redesign the way care is delivered to patients with congenital heart disease and their families. She has been involved in COVID-19 response efforts within Dell Med’s Department of Health Social Work, and she was named a Health IPE fellow by The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Health Interprofessional Practice and Education in 2021.