by
Olga Deshchenko, DOTmed News Reporter | May 23, 2011
From the May 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
And through another grant, Mount Sinai was able to establish an R Baby Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship, which supports a pediatric ER specialist focused on infectious diseases.
In 2007, the University of Maryland Hospital for Children at the University of Maryland Medical Center partnered with R Baby to establish the Rebecca Ava Rabinowitz Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory, a facility dedicated to developing diagnostic tests for infectious diseases that affect babies and children.
R Baby is also adamant about disseminating the results and innovative solutions developed by its grantees. It operates MedExchange, a website that acts as a resource for the pediatric medical community and the public - visitors can search R Baby grant programs and their findings.
POISE Network
One of the nonprofit’s most prominent national efforts is the POISE (Patient Outcomes in Simulation Education) Network.
Founded by two doctors who served as pediatric emergency medicine fellows supported by an R Baby grant in 2008, the POISE Network consists of educational programs and research projects.
Pediatric residents who take part in POISE’s educational offerings practice crucial medical procedures, such as infant lumbar punctures and neonatal intubations, on baby mannequin high-fidelity simulators.
“The idea is that you shouldn’t be practicing on patients,” says Rabinowitz. “Anyone who touches a baby should have experience and do it right the first time because it’s so critical in those emergency minutes.”
Simulation training has been used in areas of adult medicine for years, but there’s little evidence to show how well it improves outcomes in pediatric care. This is where POISE’s research component comes into play. At the end of 2010, the network produced more than 20 abstracts and presentations, which appeared on the agendas of national scientific and medical conferences.
POISE is currently training 20 percent of the nation’s pediatric interns and R Baby hopes to make it 100 percent in the near future. “We’re trying to get the training to be mandatory,” says Rabinowitz. “It’s gotten a lot of traction in the medical community.”
For the past two years, R Baby has held a Mother’s Day Run/Walk in New York City’s Central Park, raising more than $1 million for the POISE Network.
More than 40 hospitals are currently taking part in POISE initiatives and the network is looking to add more members.
“One thing I’ve learned from R Baby is that if we – parents and medical practitioners - collaborate more, we can save more lives,” Rabinowitz says.
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