Transformational Pediatrics features interviews with physicians and researchers at Children’s Mercy Kansas City who are transforming pediatric care through genomic medicine, personalized therapeutics, health services and outcomes research, and innovations in health care delivery.
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Optical Genome Mapping
Cori Cross and John Herriges
Children’s Mercy Kansas City is the first pediatric hospital in the U.S. to clinically launch Optical Genome Mapping (OGM), an advanced digitized technology that enhances the detection of genetic abnormalities. Dr. John Herriges discusses what this means for pediatric care and what's to come.
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Expanding Access to Genetic Testing to Rural Populations
Rania Habib and Ana S A Cohen
Ana Cohen, PhD, discusses Children's Mercy's cutting edge genetic testing, and how they're improving access by expanding research to rural communities
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Provider Burnout and Prioritizing Wellbeing
Rania Habib and Stephanie Burrus
Stephanie Burrus, DO, discusses physician burnout, and how Children's Mercy Kansas City's Center for Wellbeing is addressing it at their institution.
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How We Heal Little Hearts: The Piccolo Procedure Explained
Rania Habib and Toby A. Rockefeller
The Piccolo device is an innovative and minimally invasive way to close the Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in pediatrics. Dr. Rockefeller talks about how the Piccolo came to fruition, the benefits, and what else is on the horizon for the PDA closure world.
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Updated Dermatology Guidelines and Use of Bactrim
Rania Habib, Jenna Miller, and Jennifer Goldman
Bactrim is a commonly prescribed antibiotic used to treat a variety of conditions, including urinary tract infections, acne and skin and soft tissue infections. The American Academy of Dermatology recently revised its guidelines discouraging the use of Bactrim to treat acne based on research conducted by my next guests – Dr. Jenna Miller, pediatric intensivist, and Dr. Jennifer Goldman, Infectious Diseases, of Children’s Mercy Kansas City.
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Genomic Answers for Kids Expands Sequencing to Clinical Setting
Rania Habib and Tomi Pastinen
Children’s Mercy Kansas City, one of the nation’s leading independent pediatric health organizations, announced it is the first health care system to use 5-base HiFi sequencing, the world’s most-advanced genomic sequencing technology from PacBio, in the clinical setting to accelerate diagnoses for even more patients and families.
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Precision Medicine in Pediatrics: Genetic Testing for Children with Cancer
Rania Habib, Midhat Farooqi, and Lisa A. Lansdon
To accelerate precision medicine for pediatric oncology, Children’s Mercy Kansas City, together with its Research Institute (CMRI), pioneered a new whole-exome-sequencing-based genetic test for all children diagnosed with cancer. While many pediatric research institutions in the country conduct genetic sequencing of tumors, CMRI is one of the few institutions performing both research and clinical sequencing in-house on both tumor and normal DNA samples.
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Navigating Pediatric Fontan-Associated Liver Disease
Cori Cross and Ryan T. Fischer
Incredible advances in the care of patients born with single-ventricle heart disease have led to significantly better quality of life and survival. Complex surgical palliation culminating in the Fontan procedure is effective and can allow patients to grow and develop similar to their peers. Unfortunately, changes related to Fontan anatomy lead to stress and increased pressure on the liver, known as Fontan-associated liver disease. These stresses can cause scar tissue to form and—rarely—liver cancer to form. Dedicated liver care is vital to providing Fontan patients with the healthiest life possible.
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Population Health Management and Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes
Andrew Wilner and Mark A. Clements
In this episode, Dr. Mark Clements leads a discussion focusing on population health management and pediatric type 1 diabetes.
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Data Science: Informing Better Health Care Decisions
Andrew Wilner and Mark A. Hoffman
Data science -- often discussed with terms like artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, data goverernance -- has the potential to transform every aspect of health care, from the patient experience to how, when and where care is provided, and improving outcomes. In this Transformational Pediatrics episode, Mark Hoffman, PhD, Chief Research Information Officer at Children's Mercy Kansas City, discusses the challenges and opportunities for data science within pediatric health care and gives examples where it is already making a difference for children today.
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Professional Coaching in Medicine and Health Care
Andrew Wilner and Alyssa Stephany
The health care sector has begun to embrace coaching to promote resilience and innovation during a time of massive disruption while also cultivating healthier workplace cultures. In this podcast, Alyssa Stephany, MD, Director of the Physician Leadership Center at Children's Mercy Kansas City shares how professional and peer coaching can help reduce burnout, increase job satisfaction, and improve the overall provider experience of health care, while also having a positive effect on patient care.
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Health and Poverty
Melanie Cole and Jessica L. Bettenhausen
Nearly 1 in 5 children in the United States live in rural areas. Rural children experience health and health care disparities compared to their urban peers and represent a unique and vulnerable pediatric patient population. Important disparities exist in all-cause mortality, suicide, firearm-related unintentional injury, and obesity. In this episode, Dr. Jessica Bettenhausen discusses research into these disparities, their causes and potential actions to address them.
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Health Care Informatics
Andrew Wilner and Jill Westcott
What is informatics and why is it important in health care? Listen as Jill Westcott, MD, MS, FACOG, Physician Informaticist for the Fetal Health Center at Children's Mercy, shares her expertise on the topic and how informatics is improving patient outcomes in fetal health.
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Genomic Answers for Kids Establishes New Paradigm in Rare Disease Research
Melanie Cole and Tomi Pastinen
The Children’s Mercy Research Institute® is undertaking a research initiative to build a first-of-its-kind pediatric data repository to facilitate the search for answers and novel treatments for pediatric genetic conditions. Our goal is to collect genomic data and health information for 30,000 children and their families over the next seven years, creating a database of nearly 100,000 genomes.
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Transforming Pediatric Research
Melanie Cole and Tom Curran
How do we create a healthier future for children? The Children's Mercy Research Institute with a core focus on genomics, personalized therapeutics, population health, health care innovation and bioethics is positioned to fundamentally transform pediatric research and create a world of well-being for all children. Listen as Thomas Curran, PhD, FRS, Chief Scientific Officer, discusses the institute and the future of pediatric research.
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Achieving Transplant Excellence Through Personalized Medicine
Melanie Cole and Bradley Warady
Children’s Mercy Kansas City is recognized as one of the top 10 nephrology programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, and the kidney transplant program has incorporated a number of innovative practices into their management plan that are designed to enhance patient outcomes. Join us as Dr. Bradley Warady discusses how the program’s personalized approach to meeting each patient’s unique needs — including repeated surveillance biopsies, epitope matching and pharmacokinetic assessment of immunosuppressive medication — has contributed to a 100% three-year patient and graft survival rate for the past six years.
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Pediatric Hemodialysis and Advances in Infection Prevention and Vascular Preservation
Melanie Cole and Bradley A. Warady
To reduce the risk of complications related to hemodialysis, the Children’s Mercy Kansas City Division of Nephrology has implemented several strategies. Listen as Dr. Bradley Warady shares how the institution of standardized infection prevention practices has resulted in more than 1,200 consecutive days without an outpatient central line-associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) in a hemodialysis (HD) patient. In addition, Dr. Warady discusses how vascular preservation protocols also are improving the long-term venous access options for these and future patients.
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Impact of Race & Ethnicity on Responses to Folic Acid Dosing
Melanie Cole and Devika Maulik
Devika Maulik MD shares her translational research as it relates to folic acid and different responses to dosing among women of various races and ethnicities. She is using the information gathered to create recommended guidelines for folic acid dosing. She discusses current literature on this topic, as well as her studies in this area.
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Pediatric Recurrent Intentional Foreign Body Ingestion: Case Series and Review of the Literature
Melanie Cole and Christina M. Low Kapalu
Dr. Christina Low Kapalu discusses cases and literature surrounding pediatric recurrent intentional foreign body ingestion.
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Variations in Morning Serum Cortisol Levels Based on Sex and Pubertal Status
Melanie Cole and Sarah Tsai
Dr. Sarah Tsai discusses his recent findings from his study surround serum morning cortisol levels.
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Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome: Algorithm for Diagnosing and Treating
Melanie Cole and Emanuel Vlastos
Dr. Emanuel "Mike" Vlastos discusses the algorithm for diagnosing and trading twin to twin transfusion syndrome.
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Improved Outcomes for Liver Transplantation with Biliary Atresia
Melanie Cole and James F. Daniel
Dr. James Daniel discusses improved outcomes for liver transplantation with Biliary Atresia.
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Clinical Characteristics of Fractures in Pediatric Patients Exposed to PPIs
Michael Smith and Nathan R. Fleishman
Dr. Nathan Fleishman discusses the clinical characteristics of fractures in pediatric patients exposed to PPIs.
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Pediatric Provider Well-Being and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Melanie Cole and Jennifer Bickel
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented work environment for pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists. How we practice medicine has been dramatically changed. When discussing physical precautions such as PPE and social distancing, provider mental well-being also should be a part of the conversation.
In this podcast, Jennifer Bickel, MD, pediatric neurologist and Medical Director of the Children’s Mercy Center for Professional Well-Being, discusses how pediatricians have responded to the pandemic on a personal and professional level, the impact on physical and mental health, adjusting to the decrease in patient and peer contact, warning signs of burnout and mental health issues, steps Children’s Mercy is taking to address physician well-being, and more. -
Preventing Type 2 Diabetes
Michael Smith and Kelsee Halpin
Dr. Kelsee Halpin discusses Endocrinology and Diabetes.
