April 5, 2023

Don't miss Manne Research Institute news as it happens.

Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn today. 

UPDATES FROM RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION

Leading the Transformation of Pediatric Healthcare at Home

View the latest President's Message

In the recent Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute President’s Message, Dr. Patrick Seed highlights a new Health@Home research initiative driven by Carolyn Foster, MD, MS, and Juan Espinoza, MD, to generate insights into remote patient monitoring technology and the most effective strategies for monitoring patients at home.

“Recent advancements in remote patient monitoring technology, accelerated by the global pandemic, present a unique opportunity to explore novel healthcare delivery methods for patients outside the hospital or clinical settings. To move the field forward, researchers must ask and answer the right questions, ensuring that implementing emerging remote technologies allows us to deliver the best quality and value of care possible.”

Urgent Medical Recall: BD Insulin Syringes

On March 30, Fischer Scientific informed Manne Research Institute of an urgent medical device recall of BD insulin syringes. View the full communication for the recall.

Per Fischer Scientific, immediately review your inventory for the affected Catalog (Ref) and Lot Numbers and destroy all unused product subject to the recall by following institutional processes. If your area has any of the affected products, even if not matched to an affected Catalogue (Ref) or Lot Number, consult the recall details included in the communication for guidance on additional next steps. 

Specific Aims-Only Optional Review Process Now Available

The Office of Research Development announces that the Specific Aims-Only optional review process is now available to research faculty. The goal of the Specific Aims-Only review process is intended to provide investigators with feedback on a set of specific aims that could form the basis for a future grant application. Reviews will be provided by the Program Editorship for Education, Research, and Scholarship (PEERS) panel and assigned to members who fall under the submitter’s designated research pillar.

Investigators submitting to this new optional process will receive feedback on their specific aims 2 weeks after time of submission. This new optional process is available throughout the year and is not connected to any federally funded deadlines. Additional information is available on the scientific peer review webpage.

Questions can be directed to scientificreview@luriechildrens.org.

SRFO Operational Update

The Sponsored Research Finance Office has provided an update on the department's operational improvement project and on next steps. SRFO is on track to meet the objectives of this project; however, the office will be adjusting its meeting calendar in April and May to prioritize the administration of awards and transactions processed on active awards. Please view the full details.

Nominations for the Manne Research Institute Advisory Committee Accepted Through April 7

Election cycle set for April 10–14

The nomination cycle for the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute's Advisory Committee is currently open. Since 2021, the committee has existed to help amplify the voice of the research institute community. Its primary charge is to provide suggestions and strategies for improving the direction of Manne Research Institute. Nominations are accepted through April 7. The election cycle will take place April 10–14. Click the button below for full details.

Please Note the New Lurie Children's Compliance and Integrity Hotline

Lurie Children's Office of Compliance and Integrity recently updated the Compliance and Integrity Hotline. To help ensure that employees have the most current information, please update any Compliance and Integrity Hotline signage in your area. The use of the previous Compliance and Integrity Hotline will be discontinued.

Reminder: Attestation Form for Qualifying Clinical Trials Now Required

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have issued a new requirement for Qualifying Clinical Trials. A healthcare provider must provide attestation regarding the appropriateness of the qualifying clinical trial.

• As of April 1, the signed Medicaid Attestation Form will need to be uploaded to Electronic Medical Record (Epic) for all patients completing informed consent on an FDA-regulated clinical trial.
• The study Principal Investigator and a healthcare provider must sign the Research Medicaid Attestation Form.
• In some instances, the Principal Investigator may also be the healthcare provider. 
• The form should be completed at the time of informed consent and included when sending to HIM for scanning into Epic.

Full details available here.

SCIENCE SHOWCASE

Romie Gibly Awarded Lumber Spine Research Society Research Grant

Research project to examine the impact of e-cigarettes on spinal fusion

The Lumber Spine Research Society recently awarded the 2023 LSRS Cerapedics Research Grant Award to Romie Gibly, MD, PhD, Attending Physician, Division of Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.  

The research grant award is in the amount of $20,000, which Dr. Gibly and co-investigators Erin Hsu, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Feinberg School, and Wellington Hsu, MD, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Neurological Surgery at Feinberg School, will use to fund his project, “The Impact of Electronic Cigarette Vaping Extracts on Lumbar Spine Fusion in a Preclinical Model.”  

In the last decade, electronic cigarette (ECig) vaping has exploded in popularity with adolescents and adults. While respiratory, vascular, and other health risks are becoming apparent, little data exists regarding musculoskeletal system impacts. These products deliver numerous toxic products and byproducts of the chemical fluid carriers and flavoring molecules to users, and yet there are no data to guide ECig screening or risk assessment. The team will use this grant to investigate how exposure to popular, readily available ECig vaping extracts affects fusion rates, bone-forming capacity, and new bone quality in a well-established rodent lumbar spine fusion model. This study could provide critical proof-of-concept data establishing a link between ECig exposure and bone regeneration in the setting of spine fusion. 

The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2023 Meeting will take place April 27–May 1 in Washington, D.C., with an extensive list of researchers slated to present their work on behalf of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute. Our research community is also fortunate to be represented by Todd Florin, MD, MSCE, who is presently serving on the PAS board of directors. Dr. Florin is an Attending Physician and the Director of the Grainger Research Program in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Lurie Children’s and is a nationally recognized expert in the field of respiratory infectious diseases in the acute care setting. In his role with the PAS board of directors, he contributes to the development and execution of a strategic plan to elevate PAS as the premier scholarly pediatric health meeting in North America.

In this Q&A, Dr. Florin shares some of the exciting activities that attendees can expect at this year’s PAS meeting, including what attendees can expect at this year's PAS Meeting, and the themes behind this year's presentation selections.

NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH PILLARS

Two-Thirds of Chicago Parents Worried About Possible Shooting at Their Children’s School

With 157 school shootings in the United States since 2018, as well as increasingly common mass shootings in other public places, parents fear that a similar tragedy could strike in Chicago. In a recent survey from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, 67 percent of Chicago parents were worried about a possible shooting at their children’s school and 73 percent worried that a mass shooting might occur in another public place.  

A substantial proportion of parents also perceived that their children are worried about mass shootings, both at their school (40 percent) and at another public place (43 percent). Their children’s fears about school shootings were associated with lower scores on measures of well-being and higher scores on measures of stress.

“After so many mass shooting tragedies across the country, considerable parental anxiety about their children’s safety is not surprising and is consistent with data from national polls,” said Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Lurie Children’s, Executive Vice President and Chief Community Health Transformation Officer at the Patrick M. Magoon Institute for Healthy Communities at Lurie Children’s, and Chair of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Our survey results further underscore that fears about mass shootings impact youth health and well-being, especially in the context of the ongoing youth mental health crisis.”

Read more here.

View the survey results here.

Lurie Children’s Hospital Launches App to Help Screen Bruises in Young Children for Potential Abuse

Based on evidence from NIH-funded study led by Lurie Children’s physician

Research Brief: Researchers Release First-Ever Data Dictionary for Pediatric Autonomic Disorders

Having a common set of terms and definitions—data dictionaries—for various health conditions is key to guiding clinical care and investigative research. While some medical disciplines, such as neonatology and emergency medicine, have developed data dictionaries, others have not. Recognizing the lack of a set of definitions for pediatric autonomic disorders, a group of researchers from multiple centers, including Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, developed the first-of-its-kind data dictionary that comprises aspects of evaluation and management of pediatric patients with autonomic disorders. The article appears in the journal Clinical Autonomic Research. 

Key Takeaways

• There is a wide range of conditions and symptoms associated with dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. Identifying the correct terminology for pediatric autonomic disorders along with key co-morbidities is vital to accurately characterize this challenging patient population (phenotypes).
• Creation of the dictionary is a first step towards using consistent nomenclature (commonly agreed vocabulary) with consensus-driven and agreed-upon terms and definitions.
• The dictionary will allow research protocols including multicenter studies to ensure that data is collected in a more consistent and rigorous way resulting in more homogeneous cohorts. Even more importantly, it gives the medical and scientific community the ability to generate robust databases and analyze “big data”. Ultimately, this will allow more impactful studies aimed to provide the highest level of evidence-based care.
• The dictionary is the first of an iterative process of constantly updating and improving standardized terms and definitions. By now having this essential foundation, the study’s authors anticipate the possibility of better harmonization with other dictionaries in the future.

The number of children and adolescents with symptoms of orthostatic intolerance (OI), which can be associated with an autonomic dysfunction is rapidly increasing. It can manifest in a condition known as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and be associated with debilitating GI symptoms, according to study co-author John Fortunato, MD, Director of the Neurointestinal and Motility Program and an Attending Physician of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Lurie Children’s. “Up to now, there have been very loose definitions for symptoms of OI with the assumption that it’s the same as POTS, which is not always true. In fact, some patients may have profound low blood pressure (a condition known as orthostatic hypotension) or syncope (fainting),” explains Dr. Fortunato. The treatment of these different conditions is very often not the same, and assuming a diagnosis of POTS when low blood pressure is actually the problem can lead to treatments that can significantly worsen symptoms. “This is the reason the data dictionary for pediatric autonomic disorders and their associated symptoms is so important. It provides key terms and definitions to guide pediatric providers ranging from general pediatrics to specialists to accurately diagnose patients with the right condition to optimize the most appropriate care plan and medications.” 

Additionally, the success of Lurie Children’s multidisciplinary GI-cardiology autonomic clinic is predicated on a consistent methodology for patient intake and diagnostic accuracy, says Dr. Fortunato. “The model itself subscribes to the conclusions described in the data dictionary and previous consensus guidelines we’ve published as an international pediatric autonomic working group. This is evidenced real-time by a clinic integrating multiple disciplines in the same place at the same time.”

Debra Weese-Mayer, MD, Chief, Center for Autonomic Medicine in Pediatrics at Lurie Children’s, is a co-author of the study. Pediatric research at Lurie Children’s is conducted through Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute.

Article Citation

Boris, JR, Abdallah, H, Ahrens S, et al. Creating a Data Dictionary for Pediatric Autonomic Disorders. Clinical Autonomic Research. 2023 Feb. 17 (Epub ahead of print). doi: 10.1007/s10286-023-00923-3.

MANNE RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN THE MEDIA

• What We Get Wrong About Respiratory Issues - Chicago Magazine
• Few Hospitals Are Willing To Bear the Cost of Providing Psychiatric Care for Kids - WBEZ
• Q&A: Pediatric Pneumonia Severity Risk Tool Aims To Provide ‘Safer, More Effective Care’ - Healio
• An Illinois Lifeline Program for Suicidal Kids Has Become a Bridge to Nowhere for Many - WBEZ
• Disconnecting the Brain Helps Kids With Epilepsy - WGN
• Kids in Crisis Face Long Waitlists as They Struggle To Get Appointments for Therapy - WBEZ