A study published recently in the IBD Journal found significant differences in hospital readmissions, medication usage, and both medical and surgical complications of children with Crohn’s disease related to race. In the study, black children had a 1.5 times higher frequency of hospital readmissions because of Crohn’s disease compared to white children.
A new study published in Pediatrics demonstrates the cost-saving and health care quality outcomes of the pediatric Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Partners for Kids. Results of this study indicate that Partners for Kids successfully improved the value of pediatric healthcare over time through cost containment, while maintaining quality of care.
A study published recently by researchers from Nationwide Children’s Hospital, found 10 percent of adolescents sent to a Sleep Center for evaluation of excessive daytime sleepiness with testing results consistent with narcolepsy had urine drug screens positive for marijuana.
Investigators at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have developed an analysis “pipeline” that slashes the time it takes to search a person’s genome for disease-causing variations from weeks to hours. An article describing the ultra-fast, highly scalable software was published in the latest issue of Genome Biology.
Viral therapy for childhood cancer could possibly improve if treatments such as chemotherapy do not first suppress patients’ immune systems, according to findings published today in the journal Molecular Therapy—Oncolytics.
Veronica Vieland, PhD, director of the Battelle Center for Mathematical Medicine in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, was recently awarded a $500,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation for her research study, “Measuring the Evidence in Evidence-Based Medical Research.”
Researchers have developed a way to measure upper extremity movement in patients with muscular dystrophy using interactive video game technology. Their hope is to expand inclusion criteria for clinical trials to incorporate patients using wheelchairs.
The ANCC Magnet Recognition is the ultimate benchmark in nursing excellence and is awarded to only about seven percent of the nation’s more than 6,000 hospitals across the country.
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have found that an estimated 3,278,073 children were treated in United States emergency departments from 1990 through 2011 for a toy-related injury.
This month is Prematurity Awareness Month and today is World Prematurity Day. What many people may not know is part of the comprehensive care for the tiniest babies includes medications such as Sildenafil and caffeine. Nearly all of the babies in Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) receive caffeine as they are coming off a ventilator and learning to breathe on their own.
After releasing the results of a new study detailing the dangers of laundry detergent pods, researchers are calling for a national product safety standard in an effort to better protect children. The study showed that during a two year period, there were more than 17,000 children exposed to the highly concentrated chemicals in laundry detergent pods. That’s a child every hour.
A newly published study shows how often adults make mistakes when giving medication to children. The study, led by researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found that medication errors occur in a child every eight minutes in the United States, on average, and the numbers are increasing.
According to the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma, patients with severe injuries should be treated at level I or level II trauma centers. Those centers have the resources to provide the best care for those patients.
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio (RMHC) is building more stories of hope throughout Central Ohio and beyond. The charity is unveiling its new 57-guest room expansion on September 11. These new additions make the Columbus Ronald McDonald House the largest in the world, with a total of 137 guest rooms on campus, and will allow the charity to provide over 15,000 additional nights at the House every year for families of seriously ill children.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital will host the 2014 Candidates Forum on Children and Youth Friday, October 17 in the Ann Isaly Wolfe Education Building at Nationwide Children’s in Stecker Auditorium, located at 575 S. 18th St., Columbus 43205.
The Ohio State University, through the Ohio State Innovation Foundation, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital announced the signing of an exclusive, world-wide agreement with ENTvantage Diagnostics Inc. licensing a technology for rapid diagnosing of bacterial sinusitis.
A recent study of an ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia technique, called femoral nerve block, shows that it leads to less opioid use and allows the majority of patients to go home within hours of surgery.
Up to 5 percent of all prenatal ultrasounds uncover antenatal hydronephrosis, or enlarged kidneys, the most commonly detected prenatal abnormality in the U.S. Many children with this abnormality are treated continually with preventive antibiotics for the first few years of life with the hopes of preventing the condition’s associated urinary tract infections. Until recently, however, little evidence existed as to the benefits of this treatment, which involves considerable cost and inconvenience for families. But a new study found that, in most cases, continuous antibiotics for these children are unnecessary, findings that are especially of interest amidst increasing concern regarding antibiotic overuse.
In a study published online today by The American Journal of Sports Medicine and available in an upcoming print issue, researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Colorado School of Public Health found that high school players experienced 1,406 injuries over the 4 academic years from 2008 through 2012. The overall injury rate was 20 per 10,000 lacrosse competitions and practices.
With the recruitment of internationally-known colorectal surgeon Marc Levitt, MD, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has established a Center for Colorectal and Pelvic Reconstruction.
New research has identified a potential cause of and a better diagnostic method for preeclampsia, one of the most deadly and poorly understood pregnancy-related conditions in the world.
Researchers studying critically ill children with traumatic injuries have identified an immune marker that predicts which patients are likely to develop a hospital-acquired infection. The study, published online in June in the journal Shock, is part of several larger efforts that could lead to the clinical implementation of quick-turnaround immune function tests and treatments to prevent or reverse immune system damage following critical illness or injury in pediatric patients.
Sacral nerve stimulation, sometimes called sacral neuromodulation, is used to help patients desperate to control their bowels or bladder, when other treatment options have failed. During the procedure, surgeons implant a device which addresses communication problems between the brain and the nerves that control bowel and bladder function. If the nerves are not communicating properly, the muscles may not function properly, which leads to incontinence.
Women diagnosed with diabetes before or during pregnancy are less likely to initiate and continue breastfeeding their newborns than women without diabetes, a new study suggests. Led by clinician-scientists in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and collaborating institutions, the findings point to areas for improved prenatal and postnatal education of women with diabetes.
If you are a parent, chances are you have used or will use a baby gate at some point. Baby gates are designed to help protect young children from stairs and other dangers around the home. If you use these in your home, take note. A new study from researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital has found gates can lead to injury if used incorrectly.
Basketball is a popular high school sport in the United States with 1 million participants annually. A recently published study by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is the first to compare and describe the occurrence and distribution patterns of basketball-related injuries treated in emergency departments and the high school athletic training setting among adolescents and teens.
Using antibiotics alone to treat children with uncomplicated acute appendicitis is a reasonable alternative to surgery that leads to less pain and fewer missed school days, according to a pilot study. The research is the first prospective study on nonoperative management of acute appendicitis in pediatric patients in the United States.
A study of apparent life-threatening events — called ALTEs for short — suggests that infants who experience them have abnormal regulation of esophageal and airway function compared to healthy babies. The findings, published online March 28 in The Journal of Pediatrics by a team in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, offer new information about the mechanisms behind ALTEs and what clinicians and parents can do to avoid them.
Anastasia Fischer, MD, a physician in Sports Medicine at Nationwide Children’s, says female athlete triad syndrome is more prevalent than previously realized. The female athlete triad has three interrelated components: disordered eating low energy availability (often caused by not eating appropriately), dysmenorrhea (change in a girl's period), and low bone mineral density.
Although a voluntary shopping cart safety standard was implemented in the United States in 2004, the overall number and rate of injuries to children associated with shopping carts have not decreased. In fact, the number and rate of concussions/closed head injuries have continued to climb, according to a new study.
An act recently signed by President Obama will make it easier to provide epinephrine to children with severe food allergies in schools, even without a prescription. Physicians at Nationwide Children’s Hospital hope the act will encourage the remaining 20 states to pass legislation, incentivizing and, in some cases, requiring that schools to have this medication available for all students since up to 6 percent of children in the United States are now diagnosed with a food allergy.
High chairs and booster seats are commonly used to help make feeding young children easier. Although most parents assume these products are safe, millions have been recalled in recent years, and injuries associated with their use continue to occur.
For the third consecutive year, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has been named a Top Children’s Hospital on The Leapfrog Group’s annual list of Top Hospitals. Nationwide Children’s is one of only two children’s hospitals in Ohio, and one of 13 children’s hospitals nationwide, to be included on this prestigious list.
Edwin M. Horwitz, MD, PhD, recently was appointed director of Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Horwitz, board-certified in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, comes to Nationwide Children’s from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Brian K. Kaspar, PhD, and Veronica J. Vieland, PhD, principal investigators in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Scientists have identified the genetic signature of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the leading cause of infant hospitalizations around the world. The work is a key step toward a better understanding of the immune response to RSV, which will aid the development of a vaccine and a tool that could allow physicians to determine the severity of the infection when symptoms first develop.
Initial results of a first and largest of its kind study focusing on the safety of adolescent bariatric surgery were published this week in JAMA Pediatrics. The “Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery” (Teen-LABS) study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is being conducted at five sites in the U.S., including Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
In the first molecular genetic study of families with a history of both language impairment and autism, scientists may have uncovered a shared origin for the two conditions, an important step toward explaining why some cases of autism are accompanied by language difficulties and others are not. The study indicates that a disorder called specific language impairment—one of the most common developmental delays in children—may be caused by the same genetic variants that lead to language difficulties in some children with autism.
Scientists in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have found a way to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to using viruses to deliver therapeutic genes: how to keep the immune system from neutralizing the virus before it can deliver its genetic payload.
Infants who get hepatitis C from their mothers during childbirth may inherit a viral strain that replicates more quickly than strains found in non-pregnant hosts, according to a new study published Oct. 27 in Nature Medicine. The findings, from a team in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s, are the first to describe how a virus that has infected 180 million people worldwide takes advantage of immune changes during pregnancy.
AveXis and BioLife, synthetic biology platform companies, today announced that The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its scAAV9.CB.SMN gene therapy product for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). This new gene therapy product created by scientists at The Research Institute was granted Fast Track status after demonstrating preliminary effectiveness in mouse models of SMA, potentially addressing this unmet medical need.
Parents do everything they can to protect their children against all of the nasty germs floating around classrooms across the country this time of year. Doctors and researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, however, are looking into how those same types of common viruses can actually help treat a child who is diagnosed with certain cancers.
Studies of a therapy designed to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) suggest that the treatment dramatically slows onset and progression of the deadly disease, one of the most common neuromuscular disorders in the world. The researchers, led by teams from The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Ludwig Institute at the University of California, San Diego, found a survival increase of up to 39 percent in animal models with a one-time treatment, a crucial step toward moving the therapy into human clinical trials.
The hepatitis C virus hijacks the body’s immune system, leaving T cells unable to function. A new study in animal models suggests that blocking a protein that helps the virus thrive could restore immune function, allowing the body to fight infection. The work, led by teams at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Emory University, was published online Aug. 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
William E. Shiels II, DO, chief of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Department of Radiology and president of Children’s Radiological Institute, Inc., is leading a team of radiologists for the training of military physicians to remove shrapnel foreign bodies from warfighters with ultrasound-guided techniques that he originally developed, with subsequent improvements made by the full team of Nationwide Children’s Hospital interventional radiologists.
Kevin E. Klingele, MD, recently was appointed chief of Orthopedics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In his previous role, Dr. Klingele was the interim chief of Orthopedics. He will continue to serve as the surgical director of Sports Medicine at Nationwide Children’s.