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Spotlight on: Dr. Andrea Knight
Please join us in wishing Andrea Knight, MD, MSCE luck in her new role! Dr. Knight will be joining the Division of Rheumatology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. She will start her new position this October 2018, as an Associate Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute, and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto. Although she will miss CHOP greatly, she is excited to return to family and friends in her hometown of Toronto. She is also excited to work in the division where her interest in pediatric rheumatology all began as a rotating medical student!

Dr. Knight arrived at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in 2004 after earning her BS in human biology at the University of Toronto and her MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She completed her pediatric residency and rheumatology fellowship at CHOP before joining the faculty. Dr. Knight is an alumna of the Pediatric Hospital Epidemiology and Outcomes Research Training (PHEOT) program managed by CPCE, and the MSCE degree program at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Knight’s research aims to improve mental health and overall outcomes for children and adolescents with rheumatologic conditions. She has a particular focus on youth with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and is interested more broadly in patient-oriented outcomes, health care disparities and utilization in youth with rheumatic conditions. She has led studies to investigate the burden of depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders, their impact on patient outcomes, as well as strategies to enhance mental health intervention for these youth. During her time at CHOP, she has worked on bringing this research into practice through development of an Integrated Lupus Care Program, funded by a CHOP Chair’s Initiative, which will help address psychosocial needs of youth with SLE.

Dr. Knight’s most recent work utilizes clinical and translational methods to understand the impact of SLE on cognitive health, with the future goal of improving management strategies for SLE patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. She recently received a K23 Career Development Award from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) to examine brain structure, function and development in pediatric SLE patients via multimodal neuroimaging techniques. She is also the recent recipient of an Investigator Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation, a Novel Research Program Award from the Lupus Research Alliance, and several grants from the Childhood Arthritis & Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA).

Dr. Knight currently leads the research workgroup for the SLE Mental Health Section of CARRA, and holds the positions of Vice Chair of the SLE Section of CARRA, and member of the Medical Scientific Advisory Committee for the Lupus Foundation of America. 

As a clinical investigator at the Hospital for Sick Children, Dr. Knight will continue her work to improve neuropsychiatric function and mental health in youth with SLE, as well as those with other rheumatologic conditions.
Upcoming Events
Clinical Trials Research Affinity Group (RAG) Seminar
Date: August 7, 2018
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Location: Roberts Center, 2nd Floor, Conference Room 2-160
Martha A.Q. Curley, RN, PhD, FAAN, Ruth M. Colket Endowed Chair in Pediatric Nursing at CHOP, will present "Team Science - Answering Complex Clinical Questions Together." See the event flyer for additional information.

CHOP/Penn Networking Event
Date: August 8, 2018
Time: 5:00 - 8:00 pm
Location: Stoner Courtyard, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
PROSPER is hosting a CHOP/Penn research staff networking event at the eighth annual Summer Nights Concert Series at Penn’s Museum. The West Philadelphia Orchestra will perform. Admission is free with your CHOP or Penn ID badge! Learn more here.

Know Your Community
Date: September 12, 2018
Time: 11:30 am - 2:00 pm
Location: Colket Translational Research Building, Room 1200A
The goals of the event are to: create a forum to identify and facilitate networking opportunities and promote greater collaboration amongst individuals conducting community based research, present research resources in the greater Philadelphia area and to highlight best practices and procedures for engaging the public, and create increased communication within and across research organizations. CPCE's Richard Aplenc, MD, PhD, MSCE will give opening remarks; Sandra Amaral, MD, MHS, and Lindsay Waqar, MPH, CCRC are speakers. Learn more and register here.

Charting New Frontiers in Children's Health Policy & Practice
Date: October 22, 2018
Time: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm
Location: National Museum of American Jewish History
Join our PolicyLab colleagues as they convene regional and national leaders in children’s health policy to outline the emerging innovative solutions that will move the dial on child, adolescent and family health and well-being over the course of the next decade. The forum will feature morning and lunch-time plenaries about evidence-based policymaking at the national level, and breakout sessions with panel discussions highlighting innovative practice and policy on the most pressing issues facing child and adolescent health. Learn more here. 
CPCE in
the News!
Recent Publications
This study provides a baseline assessment for examining trends in 30-day unplanned pediatric readmissions, an important quality metric as the provisions of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act and the Affordable Care Act are changed and implemented in the future. Over 50,000 pediatric hospital stays in 2014 occurred within 30 days of a previous hospitalization, with an average cost of $13,800. This report is timely, as the health care system works to become more patient-centered and public and private payers grapple with how to pay for quality care for children. The report provides baseline information that can be used to further explore ways to reduce unplanned readmissions

The objective of this study was to reduce the healthcare-associated viral infection (HAVI) rate to 0.70 infections or fewer per 1,000 patient days by developing and sustaining a comprehensive prevention bundle. The iterative development, implementation, and refinement of targeted prevention practices was associated with a significant reduction in pediatric HAVI. These practices were ultimately formalized into a comprehensive prevention bundle and provide an important framework for both patient and systems-level interventions that can be applied year-round and across inpatient areas.

The Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus Disease Area and Severity Index (CLASI) is a reliable outcome measure for cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) in adults used in clinical trials. However, it has not been validated in children, limiting clinical trials for pediatric CLE. This study from Dr. Sabrina Gmuca, Dr. Andrea Knight and colleagues aims to validate the CLASI in pediatrics.

Efforts to decrease hospital revisits often focus on improving access to outpatient follow-up. The objective of this study from Dr. Chen Kenyon and the Pediatric Respiratory Illness Inpatient Measurement System (PRIMES) study team was to assess the relationship between perceived access to timely office-based care and subsequent 30-day revisits following hospital discharge for four common respiratory illnesses.

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are associated with increased morbidity and mortality and with excess costs. Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) are the most common HAI in infants and children. The broad objective of this study was to establish national benchmark data around rates of CLABSI in neonatal and pediatric intensive care units (NICUs and PICUs) and pediatric oncology units in Greece. These data could be used to benchmark and serve as baseline data for the design and evaluation of infection control and antimicrobial stewardship interventions.

Funding Opportunities
The foundation is accepting Letters of Intent from community-based organizations working in the areas of HIV/AIDS care and direct services, education, and research. Grants will be awarded in support of developing or established programs, with emphasis on the direct benefit to clients or the target audience.

The Pardee Foundation provides support to investigators in United States nonprofit institutions proposing research directed toward identifying new treatments or cures for cancer. The foundation particularly encourages grant applications for a one year period which will allow establishment of capabilities of new cancer researchers, or new cancer approaches by established cancer researchers. It is anticipated that this early stage funding may lead to subsequent and expanded support using government agency funding.

The Lymphoma Research Foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for lymphoma through an aggressively funded research program and by supporting the next generation of lymphoma researchers. To advance this mission, the foundation is accepting applications for its LRF Clinical Investigator Career Development Award program, which is designed to support physician-investigators at the level of advanced fellow or junior faculty member who will contribute to the development of new lymphoma therapies and diagnostic tools. The grant provides a total of $225,000 to grantees over three years, including salary support in the amount of $70,000 per year.

Grants of up to $130,000 over two years will be awarded to junior faculty researchers for innovative translational research projects in hematology/oncology (with a focus on hematologic malignancies) that can be either based around a clinical trial with strong correlative science or laboratory investigation.

Systems for Action (S4A) is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that aims to discover and apply new evidence about ways of aligning the delivery and financing systems for medical, social, and public health services that support a Culture of Health. S4A uses a wide research lens that includes and extends beyond medical care and public health systems to include other sectors that affect health and well-being, such as housing, transportation, social services, education, criminal and juvenile justice, and economic and community development. In 2018, the program will award up to six grants of up $250,000 over four years.

The Possibilities Project seeks proposals for research/innovation pilot studies focused on promoting wellness for patients and families (e.g. sleep, physical activity, diet, stress management). The program will focus on supporting the iterative testing of innovations and intervention development as opposed to implementing fixed protocols. Selected proposals will be supported for up to a maximum of $50,000 for one year. Fellows and faculty from all CHOP departments, divisions and the Care Network are eligible.

The Thrasher Research Fund provides grants for clinical, hypothesis-driven research that offers substantial promise for meaningful advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of children's diseases, particularly research that offers broad-based applications. The fund awards small grants of up to $25,000 to new researchers to help them gain a foothold in the area of pediatric research. The program will consider a variety of research topics important to children's health. 

The Conquer Cancer Foundation works to conquer cancer by funding breakthrough cancer research and sharing cutting-edge knowledge with patients and physicians worldwide, improving quality of and access to care, and enhancing quality of life for all who are touched by cancer. To that end, CCF is accepting applications for its Career Development Award, an annual research program that provides funding to clinical investigators who have received their initial faculty appointment to establish an independent clinical cancer research program. A single grant of $200,000 over three years will be awarded for a patient-oriented project that could include a clinical research study and/or translational research involving human subjects.

The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood supports innovative, creative projects and programs with the potential to significantly enhance the development, health, safety, education, and/or quality of life of children from birth through age five. The foundation provides funding in the areas of early childhood welfare, early childhood education and play, and parenting education.

The Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics is a career-development award designed to enable junior faculty members to carry out innovative bioethics research. The program supports research that goes beyond current work in bioethics to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical care, biomedical research, and public policy, and creates a community that enhances future bioethics research by Greenwall scholars and alumni/ae.
 
The Gerber Foundation is accepting concept papers for research projects focused on improving the health, nutrition, and/or development of infants and young children. In particular, the foundation is looking for practical solutions that can be rapidly implemented on a broad scale and within a predictable time frame to clinical application. Major target areas include new diagnostic tools, new treatment regimens, symptom relief, preventative measures, assessment of deficiencies or excesses (vitamins, minerals, drugs, etc.), and risk assessment tools or measures for environmental hazards, trauma, etc. Grant amounts will range up to $350,000.

The annual program provides physicians who wish to pursue a career in cancer research with the opportunity for a protected research training experience under the mentorship of a highly qualified mentor after they have completed their clinical training. The award program will provide up to $460,000 over four years in financial support. In addition, the foundation will retire up to $100,000 of any outstanding medical school debt owed by a grant recipient.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is accepting applications for the 2015 Warren H. Pearse Women's Health Policy Research Award. The annual program includes a single grant of $10,000 for research that explores an aspect of healthcare policy that assists, defines, or restricts the ability of a physician to deliver health care to women in either the general population or a specific area. Applicants must be a junior fellow or fellow of the college at the time of application.

Last year, the NIH received approximately $30 billion in federal support. In spite of this amount, about 42,500 grants were not funded. To address these unfunded proposals, the NIH has a new Pilot Program that is designed to match researchers with nonprofit disease Foundations or with investments from private companies. Through a new collaboration between the NIH and the private contractor Leidos, researchers can now upload their unfunded NIH Proposals into an online portal at the Online Partnership to Accelerate Research (OnPAR). Foundations and other potential funders can review the NIH scores, and decide whether they might be interested in funding the Projects. Currently, this Pilot Program allows researchers with priority scores better than the 30th percentile to submit their abstracts. Interested Foundations might ask that a researcher send their full NIH Application along with its scores. The consensus opinion is that there are a lot of worthy grants being submitted to the NIH, but there is only so much funding available. OnPAR is one way of trying to match researchers with private Foundations. 
About CPCE
We are a pediatric research center dedicated to discovering and sharing knowledge about best practices in pediatric care by facilitating, organizing and centralizing the performance of clinical effectiveness research -- research aimed at understanding the best ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases in children. CPCE’s multidisciplinary team conducts research on a diverse range of clinical effectiveness topics grouped within four areas of research: