Upcoming Events

6th Annual Public Health Day Symposium

Date: April 1, 2019

Time: 8:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location: The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 South 22nd Street

The Public Health Day Symposium kicks off Public Health Week and provides a unique collaborative environment for all academic, community, and government public health professionals in the greater Philadelphia region. Learn more.

CHOP’s MEDTalks: A Teen Health Showcase

Date: April 2, 2019

Time: 2:00 - 3:30 pm

Location: Abramson, Room 123

The second-ever national Teen Health Week is just around the corner! Stop by a TED-talk style event to celebrate and learn little bit more about adolescent and young adult health in Philadelphia. We’re hosting a lineup of lightning-round presentations to showcase how CHOP is making a difference for teens in our clinics and community. This event is free and open to the public and will conclude with an informal networking session. For more information, click here.

Career Pathways in Global Health

Date: April 6, 2019

Time: 10:00 am - 1:00 pm

Location: Perry World House, 3803 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 

Global health is less about geography and more of a lens through which one approaches health care delivery and outcomes in the larger global context. The career paths in this field are as vast as the topic itself. Come learn about the career trajectories and work lives of featured speakers regarding local and global public health research and practice. More details available online.

National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) Webinar: “Pursuing Health Equity: Start Where You Are, A Conversation About Individual Implicit Bias”

Date: April 10, 2019

Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm

All children deserve an equal chance to grow and thrive, but too often, obstacles to health, such as poverty, access to quality education and health care, discrimination, and personal bias get in the way. This is why NICHQ is launching a series of webinars to support individuals who are pursuing equity within the health system. If you have ever felt overwhelmed on where to begin with tackling such a complex subject, NICHQ invites you to register for their first webinar and join them in what will be an ongoing conversation. Specifically, this webinar will provide an overview of health equity and implicit bias, and their impact on children's health; a modeling exercise to explore how to recognize and address individual implicit bias; and resources and guidance to help attendees continue this journey after the webinar. For more information, click here.

Recent Publications

Interprofessional Teamwork during Family Meetings in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit

Parents of children in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) often report insufficient communication and conversations with clinicians that lack empathy. Faculty members Jennifer Walter and Chris Feudtner and their team at CPCE studied the types of contributions of team members from a variety of professions during conversations with families. In 10 meetings analyzed, physicians spoke most, an average of nearly 80% of meetings. Non-physicians spoke for almost 10%, and parents, 17%. Conversations were primarily between parents and physicians, until physicians indicated that other team members could contribute. Parents expressing emotion (on average 4.2 times per meeting) were met with an empathetic response 2.2 times per meeting, on average, from the clinical team. To improve communication between parents and their team, this study suggests that coordinating team members’ roles in the meeting may be helpful in increasing parental engagement to facilitate decision-making, as well as identifying opportunities for the clinical team to provide more empathetic responses to parents. 

Stenting of the Ductus Arteriosus for Ductal-Dependent Pulmonary Blood Flow – Current Techniques and Procedural Considerations

For children with congenital heart disease and ductal-dependent pulmonary blood flow (PBF), their prognosis and survival have been greatly improved through the use of prostaglandin-E1 and subsequent creation of the modified Blalock-Taussig shunt (BTS). Despite advances in these procedures, significant morbidity and mortality after BTS remain. CPCE faculty member Andrew Glatz, along with his team, investigated recent advances in this technique. They found that attention to anatomic and technical details optimized the success of this procedure, but future improvements are inevitable. 

Protocol Optimization for Cardiac and Liver Iron Content Assessment using MRI: What Sequence Should I Use?  

Iron is an essential element throughout the body, found in a variety of tissues and cells. Some conditions, which increase intestinal iron absorption or require chronic intravenous blood transfusions, are associated with iron overload in children. Although many organs are impacted by iron levels, the heart and liver are the most at risk for toxicity. The current process for estimating cardiac and hepatic iron content entails separate MRIs for each organ, which results in redundant scans and unnecessarily long exams. By optimizing the cardiac MRI, expenses and scanner time could be reduced and patient experience could be improved without losing diagnostic value. In a retrospective study, CPCE faculty member Hansel J. Otero and a team of CHOP researchers, compared the different sequences for liver and cardiac iron estimation in children, and found that MRI protocols could be simplified to a single sequence for children. 

Beyond Reporting Early Warning Score Sensitivity: The Temporal Relationship and Clinical Relevance of “True Positive” Alerts that Precede Clinical Deterioration

In an inpatient setting, patients at risk for clinical deterioration may not be identified efficiently or effectively by providers. There are early warning systems that may allow for improved outcomes, but they need to be studied further. To better understand the relationship between early warning system acuity alerts and clinical practice, Chris Bonafide of CPCE, and others, studied a cohort of hospitalized patients who experienced a critical deterioration event (CDE) and who would have triggered a preceding pRI (pediatric Rothman Index) alert. The team evaluated whether the alert would have preceded evidence that clinicians recognized deterioration or escalated care. They found that 90% of CDE events that generated “true positive” pRI alerts had evidence suggesting that clinicians had already recognized deteriorization and/or were already escalating care before most pRI alerts would have been triggered. 

Two-Tier Lyme Disease Serology Test Results Can Vary according to the Specific First-Tier Test Used

Lyme disease, a tick-borne disease that results from an infection with the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium, is primarily diagnosed via serology. Serology has limitations, including false-negative results in early disease and false-positive results after previous infection, but it is the best available test for diagnosing a patient with noncutaneous Lyme disease. The team of researchers, which includes CPCE faculty member Fran Balamuth, sought to fill a gap in knowledge about how these types of tests can vary and disagree. New ways to diagnose Lyme disease are needed, in order to rapidly and accurately identify children with or without the disease. 

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