Leadership Circle 2011 Grant Recipients
2011 Leadership Circle Grants Improve Autism Diagnosis, Enhance Life Support and Monitoring, and Provide Other Needed Services for Children and Families
Five grant proposals for 2011 were fully funded by Leadership Circle members, based on their pooled annual donations and their votes. Collectively, these new and expanded programs will help thousands of children and families—providing advanced, needed services that would have not been possible otherwise. Leadership Circle members make it happen!
Please join us in our efforts; become a member today at: www.phoenixchildrens.com/leadershipcircle.
Catching Kids Early: Improved Developmental and Autism Screening
Robin Blitz, MD, General Pediatrics – Developmental Pediatrics
Amount funded: $74,950
An expansion of the PCH autism and developmental screening program has been made possible by this funding. This support helps ensure consistent autism and developmental screening for every child seen in the General Pediatrics Clinic at PCH, as well as expanding advanced training in developmental assessment skills for PCH pediatric residents. From July to October, 2010, the PCH General Pediatric Clinic saw a total of 1,200 children, birth to five, for well-child care visits. However, only 125 children received autism and developmental screening. Expanded autism and developmental screening, along with expansion of training for the pediatric residents, will significantly improve the quality of healthcare provided to patients and their families. It also demonstrates that PCH is the premier pediatric medical center, not only for those who seek specialty care, but also for those who seek general pediatric and well-child care. The project also helps position PCH as the hospital that reaches out to the community to children who otherwise may not be screened for autism and other developmental disabilities. PCH screenings provide opportunities for early intervention to high-risk children who otherwise may not be identified, thus impacting their future education and lifetime opportunities.
Endoscopy Expansion and Improvements
Mark McOmber, MD, Gastroenterology
Amount funded: $68,200
The Gastroenterology division provides more endoscopy services in Arizona than any other pediatric hospital that participates in a national consortium for such services. Endoscopy is a test that allows viewing of the lining of a child’s gastrointestinal tract with an endoscope: a long, thin, hollow tube with a special camera and light at the end. In 2010, endoscopy volume increased 14%, with an increase of an additional 15-20% expected through the affiliation with St. Joseph’s. This pace of service could not have been continued without additional equipment. To address this concern, a mobile Endoscopy system has been purchased through a Leadership Circle grant. This system is the “brain and muscle” behind each endoscopy and is required for information to be processed and stored. The purchase of this mobile system allows the Gastroenterology unit to utilize the third room in the operating room to accommodate more patients, as well as perform endoscopies elsewhere in the hospital outside the endoscopy unit. In addition to this system, a new, special scope allows evaluation of liver and bile duct disease in children less than a year old. Phoenix Children’s is the only provider of this service in the state and many surrounding states.
Multimodal Monitoring of Pediatric Patients in the
Neuro Intensive Care Unit
P. David Adelson, MD, Children’s Neuroscience Institute
Amount funded: $74,446
This project brings together diverse, advanced brain monitoring technologies to improve understanding of brain functioning complexities to support innovative and novel therapies. Such monitoring, in real time with patients, helps identify and potentially prevent brain injury during the acute phase and leads to optimal care, while allowing caregivers to test and integrate new technologies. Specifically, this proposal has established the first integrated neurophysiologic multimodal monitoring system in the PCH intensive care units and in the region. The centerpiece of the monitoring is ICM+ software that provides the necessary interface to bring together diverse data that together can portray a wholistic picture of brain activity and inform physicians about a range of choices in real time for making care as effective as possible. This integrated software approach provides new, advanced opportunities and positions PCH further as a leader and as a partner with national and international leaders in neuro-intensive care.
Advancing Life Support Capabilities: The Benefits of a New
Centrifugal System
Heidi Dalton, MD, Critical Care Medicine
Amount funded: $73,938
This project supports extracorporeal life support (ECLS), a sophisticated technology involving the use of a modified cardiopulmonary bypass circuit for temporary life support of patients with cardiac and/ore respiratory failure. ECLS provides the mechanism for gas exchange and/or cardiac life support, while bypassing the heart and lungs, optimizing organ perfusion and allowing time for recovery to the point where patients can again support themselves. The primary focus of this grant is to serve as a funding source to acquire two free-standing centrifugal perfusion systems for emergent initiation of extracorporeal life support, with the capacity to provide mobile transport of critically ill patients to PCH in the future; and to develop and implement a comprehensive Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Program to track adverse events, optimize care, and provide ongoing assessment of technology on bleeding, and thrombotic and neurologic complications. The need for this program and equipment is expected to grow.
Telepathology at Phoenix Children’s Hospital
Daphne deMello, MD, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Amount funded: $71,720
Telepathology has been established at PCH through this grant, via the purchase of high-tech licenses and camera hardware. Software and hardware is being installed and PCH practitioners educated about its use as a tool for patient care consultation. The new technology enables Pathology departments to remotely access images and information. Referring physicians can be given secure access to their case results and images. Real-time consultations can be securely conducted via web-enabled video streaming. The ASAP Imaging® system manages real-time communications and connectivity between clinicians and video-enabled imaging devices allowing remote real-time consultation. For example, a clinician viewing a bone marrow slide on a video-equipped microscope in a PCH clinic—or elsewhere—can consult with a pathologist viewing the field of view remotely in real time through the desktop computer monitor in the office. As PCH expands, such a mechanism is saving time in eliminating the need for transporting slides (or physicians) from one building to another for consultation on clinical material, such as blood or bone marrow smears.
