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Spotlight on: CPCE Pilot Grants

CPCE awarded three pilot grants in the spring 2017 cycle.

Kate Henry, MD, MSCE, a Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellow, will use her award to determine the effectiveness of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the detection of abdominal solid organ injury in young children with concern for blunt abdominal trauma. The current standard diagnostic tool for abdominal trauma, computed tomography (CT), is problematic because of the associated radiation. Alternatively, standard ultrasound has relatively low sensitivity. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound increases the sensitivity without radiation, and has shown promising results as an imaging tool in adults and older children. The goal of this study is to obtain pilot data to assess whether contrast-enhanced ultrasound is effective as a radiation-free imaging alternative in the evaluation of young children with suspected blunt abdominal trauma.  

Rachael Ross, MPH, Senior Research Associate with the Division of Infectious Diseases, will use electronic health record (EHR) data to develop population definitions which can be used to assess clinical care in pediatric primary care and inform antimicrobial stewardship interventions to improve the clinical care of acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs). ARTIs are a common indication for antibiotics prescribing in children, but not all of these prescriptions are necessary. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce unnecessary antibiotics prescriptions in the CHOP primary care network and beyond.

Jenna Streicher, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor in the Dermatology section, Division of General Pediatrics, will study the treatment of infantile hemangiomas (IH), the most common vascular tumor in children. While usually benign, sometimes complications warrant treatment of IH with oral propranolol. Currently the FDA recommends inpatient administration for infants younger than eight weeks and outpatient administration for infants eight weeks or older. However, there is little data about the rate of hospitalization for infants under eight weeks old for propranolol treatment, or about the incidenc e of side effects of the treatment. Better characterization will inform future treatment protocols. 

CPCE offers Pilot Grants twice per year to support CHOP investigators in clinical effectiveness studies that will attract external support for larger-scale projects. Read more.
Upcoming Events

mHealth Research at CHOP: Where have we been and where are we headed?
Date: June 26, 2017
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 PM
Location: Colket Building, 1st Floor, 1200A
Overview of current research, the changing digital health space at CHOP, and feedback on the mHealth REG’s first year. RSVP to mHealth@email.chop.edu. 

CHOP Improvement Leader Course - Fall Application Deadline
Date: June  30, 2017
Time: 5:00 pm
The Level 3 – Improvement Leader course provides CHOP clinicians and operational staff the experience and skills needed to lead improvement projects. The course consists of eight in-person sessions from September through December 2017, plus an improvement project practicum to be completed by December 8th. To learn more or to access the application, click here. (Requires CHOP credentials.)


CPCE in
the News!
Recent Publications

Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Other Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Sexual and Reproductive Health in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Youth.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth represent a diverse population who are affected by many sexual health inequities, including increased risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Suboptimal clinical response to fluoroquinolone (FQ) therapy has been clearly documented in patients with Salmonella typhi infection with reduced FQ susceptibility. However, the clinical impact of reduced FQ susceptibility on other infections including E. coli urinary tract infections (UTIs) has never been evaluated.

Dr. Zaoutis and colleagues conducted a systematic review of antibiotic clinical trials in complicated clinical infection syndromes in children and neonates to assess whether standardized European Medicines Agency (EMA) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance for adults was used in pediatrics, and whether pediatric clinical trials applied consistent definitions for eligibility and outcomes. 

Depression Risk in Young Adults with Childhood- and Adult-Onset Lupus: 12 Years of Follow-up.
Young adults with SLE, particularly those with childhood-onset disease, are at high risk for major depression, which is associated with increased disease activity, poorer physical functioning, and lower educational attainment. Early depression intervention in young adults with SLE has the potential to improve both medical and psychosocial outcomes.

Multisite external validation of a risk prediction model for the diagnosis of blood stream infections in febrile pediatric oncology patients without severe neutropenia.
Pediatric oncology patients are at an increased risk of invasive bacterial infection due to immunosuppression. The risk of such infection in the absence of severe neutropenia is not well established and a validated prediction model for blood stream infection (BSI) risk offers clinical usefulness

The Epidemiology of Hospital Death Following Pediatric Severe Sepsis: When, Why, and How Children With Sepsis Die.
The epidemiology of in-hospital death after pediatric sepsis has not been well characterized. Dr. Fran Balamuth and colleagues investigated the timing, cause, mode, and attribution of death in children with severe sepsis, hypothesizing that refractory shock leading to early death is rare in the current era.

See more...
Funding Opportunities

Children's Leukemia Research Association (due June 30)
CLRA was founded in 1965 to support research efforts aimed at finding the causes of and a cure for leukemia. To that end, CLRA is seeking applications from investigators for promising research on childhood leukemia. Grants of up to $30,000 will be awarded for the most promising projects with the shared goal of isolating the causes of and finding a cure for childhood leukemia. Any doctor at the Ph.D. or M.D. level involved in research on the causes of and a cure for leukemia may apply.

Rheumatology Research Foundation Investigator Award (due July 3)
This award is intended to support junior investigators during the period that they are developing a project that will be competitive for NIH funding. The purpose is to provide support for basic science, translational, and clinical investigators engaged in research relevant to the rheumatic diseases for the period between the completion of post-doctorate fellowship training and establishment as an independent investigator. The award will fund up to $375,000 for up to 3 years.

North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (due July 7)
The North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) Foundation awards grants in several categories. Awardees are typically required to be NASPGHAN members.

NIHCM Healthcare Management Research Projects (LOI due July 10)
The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation is inviting Letters of Inquiry for innovative research that will advance the existing knowledge base in the areas of healthcare financing, delivery, management, and/or policy. For its 2017-18 funding cycle, the foundation will award five to six grants totaling $300,000 for studies that have strong potential to yield insights that can be used to have a positive impact on the United States healthcare system by reducing spending, improving quality of care, and/or expanding access to insurance coverage and healthcare services.

Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) (due July 31)
Planning and Innovation Grants: Up to $10,000 will be awarded on a competitive basis to individual pediatricians and fellowship trainees to plan innovative community-based child health initiatives that will ensure all children have medical homes, are properly immunized, and have access to health care services not otherwise available in their community. Resident grants: Up to $2,000 will be awarded on a competitive basis for pediatric residents to plan and/or implement community-based child health initiatives. Projects must include planning activities or demonstrate completed planning activities, and may include implementation activities.
  
New York Life Foundation Grief Reach -- Community Expansion (due August 7)
New York Life Foundation’s Grief Reach Community Expansion RFP awards nonprofits that will expand and increase access for grief support services to underserved populations in local communities.Proposals should clearly define the target population, local partners and strategy for expansion. Grants range from $15,000 to $100,000.

OnPAR Program for Unfunded NIH Proposals
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: