CPCE is accepting applications for the fall 2018 cycle of our Pilot Grant Program, now through October 1. More details are available under Funding Opportunities below or on our website.
Spotlight on: Accuracy of At-Home Baby Monitors
CPCE Core Faculty member Christopher Bonafide, MD, MSCE and colleagues recently published in JAMA the results of a study that analyzed the accuracy of two commercially-available baby monitors. 

The Owlet Smart Sock2 and the Baby Vida are the only two currently marketed smartphone-integrated baby monitors that use pulse oximetry. The authors tested these against an FDA-approved reference monitor for their ability to measure hypoxia (low oxygen) and bradycardia (low heart rate). 

The Owlet’s overall sensitivity was 88.8 percent—it detected hypoxia, but not consistently. “If something is going wrong with a sick infant, you would want to know that 100 percent of the time,” said Bonafide.

Even more troubling, the Baby Vida monitor failed to detect hypoxia and falsely detected bradycardia in 14 patients. “False positives raise the possibility of unintended consequences,” said Elizabeth Foglia, MD, MSCE, a co-author on the paper and CHOP neonatologist. “Parents who see an abnormally low pulse rate reading might call 911, or unnecessarily rush their baby to an emergency department.”

In addition to Drs. Bonafide and Foglia, authors included A. Russell Localio, PhD, Penn Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology; Daria Ferro, MD, CHOP DBHI; Evan Orenstein, MD, now at Emory University School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics; David T. Jamison, MBA, BSEE, PMP and Chris Lavanchy, BS, BSME, both from the Health Devices Group at the ECRI Institute.

Read the CHOP press release for more details. These results have also appeared in popular news sources such as PEOPLE.com , GMA.com , and DailyMail.com ; as well as a number of technology and medical news sources: cnet , WebMD , and Medscape .
Upcoming Events
Current Issues in Vaccines webinar
Date: September 5, 2018
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Paul Offit, MD, Director of CHOP's Vaccine Education Center, will discuss the following topics:
  • Do vaccines cause autoimmune diseases?
  • Influenza vaccine: How well did it work last year?
  • Efforts to make a more effective influenza vaccine
Learn more and register here.

Cores Day
Date: September 13, 2018
Time: 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Location: Abramson Research Center Courtyard & Lobby
Get to know more than 50 Research Core Facilities representing CHOP, Penn, and the Wistar Institute. Learn more here.

Research Discovery Day
Date: October 4, 2018
Time: 10:00 am - 3:30 pm
Location: Roberts Center for Pediatric Research, Room 1120-A/B
Vendors, hands-on training, activities, CHOP pet therapy, and more! Full agenda TBD. Learn more 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
The objective of this paper was to describe the percentage and characteristics of children <24 months old with non-motor vehicle crash (non-MVC)-related injuries who 1) undergo a skeletal survey and 2) have occult fractures. In order to do so, the authors performed a retrospective chart review on a stratified, systematic random sample of 1769 children at four children’s hospitals from 2008-1012. The high rate of occult fractures in infants 0-5 months old underscores the importance of increasing the use of skeletal surveys in this population. Further research is needed to identify the injury characteristics of older infants and toddlers most at risk for occult fractures.

Customizing monitor alarm settings to individual patients can reduce alarm fatigue in intensive care units (ICUs), but has not been widely studied. The authors sought to understand ICU nurses’ approach to customization of electrocardiographic (ECG) monitor alarms. Although more than half of patients studied had at least one alarm customized, interviews revealed that there was wide variation in customization practices and identified several challenges that can inform development of strategies to improve alarm customization.

The authors created a 1-hour educational intervention of a simulated hospital admission for pediatric interns in order to assess if the simulation affects EHR use patterns. The simulation was found to be an effective education method. 

Smartphone-integrated consumer baby monitors that measure vital signs are popular among parents but are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This study measured the accuracy of pulse oximetry-based consumer baby monitors using an FDA-cleared oximeter as a reference.

Between August 2014 and September 2017, 45 children with morphologically normal cardiac chambers had cardiac prospective ECG-triggered High-Pitch Dual-Source CTA. Two pediatric radiologists blinded to clinical data, independently reviewed each case. They concluded that prospective ECG-triggered High-Pitch Dual-Source Computed Tomography Angiography achieves consistent and diagnostic image quality for coronary artery assessment at a low effective dose in pediatric patients.

Funding Opportunities
The Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance is accepting Letters of Intent for its annual CARRA Large Grant program. In 2018, between one and five grants of up $50,000 will be awarded to support the development and publication of a clinical or translational project that immediately impacts research projects within CARRA or results in a larger collaborative grant that furthers the CARRA mission.

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 annual program is designed to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators. To that end, three-year grants of up to $450,000 will be awarded to promote and support creative, paradigm-shifting cancer research unlikely to be funded through conventional channels.

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 Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance Small Grant opportunity is available to support projects in development. New or early investigators are encouraged to apply and will be afforded special consideration. The research project can be a pilot, continuation of ongoing research, or other projects that move forward clinical or translational research that furthers the CARRA mission. Preference will be given to research that is collaborative in nature, which leverage current CARRA network resources and/or will further develop the CARRA network.

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 purpose of this program is to promote and support CHOP investigators in clinical effectiveness pilot research studies that will attract external support for large-scale studies. Selected proposals will be supported for up to a maximum of $10,000 for one year. Fellows and junior faculty from all CHOP departments and divisions, particularly fellows in their final year of fellowship transitioning to a faculty position at CHOP, are encouraged to apply.

Designated Frontier Programs must have three essential components: Distinctive clinical program that provides extraordinary care; associated translational research that advances the clinical program and has potential to generate the next breakthrough; and return on investment that can support our ongoing innovation in the years to come.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has issued a Call for Applications for its 2018 Culture of Health Prize, an annual program that honors outstanding community efforts and partnerships that are helping people live healthier lives. Through the program, up to ten communities will be awarded a $25,000 cash prize and have their accomplishments celebrated and shared broadly, with the goal of raising awareness and inspiring locally driven change across the country. Community partners can decide together how to use the funds to benefit their community.

Grants of up to $20,000 are available to help support the research of faculty members or post-doctoral researchers affiliated with non-profit human service organizations in the United States and Canada. Areas of interest to the Fund are: studies to develop, refine, evaluate, or disseminate innovative interventions designed to prevent or ameliorate major social, psychological, behavioral or public health problems affecting children, adults, couples, families, or communities.
 
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 goal of the American Kidney Fund Clinical Scientist in Nephrology (CSN) fellowship program is to improve the quality of care provided to kidney patients and to promote clinical research in nephrology. The CSN program enhances the training of nephrologists who wish to pursue an academic career and whose primary professional commitment is to scholarship in the provision of patient care. The fellowship may be granted yearly, with a maximum duration of two years for each fellowship. The maximum level of funding of $80,000 per year shall be used principally to support the candidate and his or her career development, including salary.

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: