Research In Practice Blog

As 2024 comes to an end, Clinical Futures is reflecting on what has been a year of continued accomplishment, career development, and clinical impact for the Center. It’s our pleasure to highlight the achievements of our faculty and staff from the past year. I encourage you to review the highlights below and reach out to those with common interests. In my experience, building collaborations with new investigators can spark new project ideas and professional growth. 

About Clinical Futures:

• As a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Research Institute Center of Emphasis, we celebrate 17 years of innovative pediatric clinical effectiveness research and collaboration. (Two of those years being ‘Clinical Futures.’)
• We’ve refreshed our mission and vision statements to become even more focused on our efforts to improve children's health and family wellbeing. 
• We’ve expanded our Research In Practice Blog and have posted over 50 entries.
• With more than 107 faculty members and nearly 100 staff members, we are one of the largest Centers of Emphasis in the CHOP Research Institute.
• In 2024, we added 14 new faculty members to the Center and hired 16 clinical research staff members.
• We hosted 11 seminars led by core faculty, fellows, or collaborators. 
• These included 21 works-in-progress sessions, which allowed presenters to receive feedback from fellows and faculty at all levels for projects in all stages of development.
• We also hosted five (5) visiting speakers who presented on topics aligned with our methodological pillars and overall mission. 
• Five (5) fellows are currently participating in the Pediatric Hospital Epidemiology and Outcomes Research Training (PHEOT) Fellowship co-directed by Clinical Futures faculty.

Awards and Funding: 

• Our Pilot Grant Program funded four (4) projects in 2024. 
  • Irit R. Rasooly, MD, MSCE; Meghan Galligan MD, MSHP; Cara Jefferies, MSN, RN; Anna Costello, MD; Morgan Congdon, MD; Jillian Krause, MD; and Kathy Shaw, MD, MSCE Developing a Consensus Agenda for Improving Pediatric Diagnosis Clinical Futures / PolicyLab Pilot Grant program, Clinical Effectiveness Track
  • Matt Demczko, MD; Amy Goldstein, MD; Marni Falk, MD; Kathleen Sullivan, MD, PhD Open Label Treatment Trial of Sirolimus in Children with Leigh Syndrome Caused by Genetically-Confirmed Mitochondrial Respiratory Chain Deficiency Clinical Futures / Clinical Trials Research Affinity Group Clinical Trials Pilot Grant program
  • Ashlee Murray, MD, MPH; Jillian Baker, DrPH, EdM; Gwendolyn Lawson, PhD Preparing for Change: Leveraging Intervention Mapping in Preparation of a Parent Life Coaching Program for Intimate Partner Violence Survivors and their Children at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Clinical Futures Implementation Science “Preparatory to Trial” Grant program

  • Vivek Ashok, MD, FAAP; Zachary Meisel, MD, MSHP; Joel Fein, MD, MPH; Therese Richmond, PhD, RN, FAAN; Jonathan Purtle, MSc, MPH, DrPH; Katherine Kellom, BA; Isabella Ntigbu, BS Exploring State Legislator Language around Firearm Violence and Policy Implications Clinical Futures / PolicyLab Pilot Grant program, Policy Track 

    More information about these projects can be found in this Research in Practice blog post and this Cornerstone blog post.

• Clinical Futures faculty members were awarded over $27.6M in new grant funding in the past year.
• This brings total grant funding obtained by Clinical Futures faculty members since inception to approximately $373M. We share this figure to show our gratitude and appreciation to our funding partners and highlight what these awards allow us to do as a Center. These funds support the vital work and research of our faculty, principal investigators, and staff as we continue to discover best practices and improve the standard of care delivered to our patients.
• Our grant funding effort was greatly aided by the Clinical Futures/PolicyLab Grant Writing unit, which was involved in submitting over 55 grant proposals in the past calendar year.

Publications and Press:

• Clinical Futures had over 20 print media features and dozens of interviews with major media outlets like AAP News, CBS News, CNN, Health Day, MedPage Today, Medscape, NBC News, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Today, STAT, and WHYY. Visit our Press Room here. 
• The CHOP Newsroom also featured Clinical Futures in many press releases and news alerts this year, including these important stories and topics: 
  • Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Researchers Implement Successful Virtual Driving Assessment for Teens in Healthcare Settings
  • Antibiotic Use in Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants Decreased Over Time, according to a New Study from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia 
  • Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Researchers Find Parent and Caregiver Support Linked to Decreased Depression and Suicidal Thoughts in LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ Youth
• Faculty and staff members from Clinical Futures published over 400 peer-reviewed publications in a wide variety of journals. See our ‘Recent Publications’ archive here.
• Clinical Futures and researchers from our Center were featured on the CHOP Research Institute’s Cornerstone blog 17 times in 2024.
  • Including three guest blog posts: 
    • New USDHub Will Create Robust Data Resource to Advance Kidney Stone Research
    • Progressing Policy through Clinical Futures and PolicyLab Pilot Grants 
    • Pediatric IDEAS Research Group Works Best With Creative Collaboration
  • Other notable posts include: 
    • 'You Belong’: Listening to CHOP LGBTQIA2S+ Voices in STEM 
    • Researchers Design Community Health Worker Model to Support Families of Medically Complex Children
    • CHOP Global Health Center: Advancing Child Health in Resource-limited Countries
• CHOP was selected to participate in the Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII), a funding opportunity developed by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to promote the uptake of useful research results in practice. This work will be led by Clinical Futures Core Faculty Members Rebecca Same, MD, and Louis Bell, MD. The study, titled “Reducing Antibiotic Use by Implementation of Stewardship in Primary Care (RAISIN)," will aim to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use for children with ARTIs by implementing “outpatient antibiotic stewardship” across the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Primary Care Network. Read PCORI’s full announcement here. Read the CHOP's Newsroom alert here.   
• The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) awarded nearly $7 million in funding to researchers from CHOP, including co-principal investigator, Chris Bonafide, MD, MSCE, and Seattle Children's Hospital to study the evidence and potential benefits of as-needed follow-up for children hospitalized with bronchiolitis. As-needed follow-up gives families instructions for symptom management and empowers them to decide if they need a follow-up visit with their primary care doctor. The study called "Implementing Family Directed and Empowered Care with Infant Discharge Evidence (I-DECIDE)," will be conducted in more than 30 hospitals within the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings Network, dedicated to improving the health and healthcare delivery for hospitalized children and their families. Researchers will compare the effect of moderate- versus high-resource implementation strategies of as-needed follow-up prescribing by hospitalists in the short- and long-term with a focus on adoption equity. Read more about the I-DECIDE Trial here. 
• Researchers from CHOP have received $7.1 million in funding support from The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to explore ways of implementing an enhanced newborn resuscitation approach, a surprisingly frequent need for hundreds of thousands of newborn babies in the U.S. each year. Elizabeth E. Foglia, MD, MSCE, an attending physician in the Division of Neonatology and principal investigator of the Delivery Room of the Future Frontier Program at CHOP, and Chris Bonafide, MD, MSCE, Associate Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics and Co-Associate Director for Implementation Science of Clinical Futures at CHOP, will co-lead the Supraglottic Airway for Resuscitation (SUGAR) Trial. Read more here. 
• Clinical Futures welcomed Jiayin Zheng, PhD, as Associate Director, Biostatistics. Dr. Jiayin Zheng brings extensive collaborative experiences in the field of Biostatistics and has a primary focus on research exploring how real-world data can be used to improve decision-making in public health and clinical medicine. As a Clinical Futures faculty leader, he will be a resource for other faculty, trainees, and staff in cutting-edge biostatistics methodologies and work to advance our science in this area. Read more about Dr. Zheng here. 
• One hundred twenty-six (126) new members are joining the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR), including Clinical Futures Associate Director of Implementation Science Danielle L. Cullen, MD, MPH, MSHP, and core faculty members Nicolas Bamat, MD, MSCE, and Kate E. Wallis, MD, MPH. They join a network of researchers who are working to create meaningful progress in pediatric health. Read more in this SPR press release.
• Susan Furth, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the CHOP Research Institute, announced that Clinical Futures’ Core Faculty Member Robert Grundmeier, MD, will serve as Interim Chief Research Informatics Officer (CRIO) starting December 1, 2024. For over 15 years, Dr. Grundmeier has successfully used web-service decision support to improve healthcare delivery in multiple domains, including immunization administration, preventive healthcare for premature infants, asthma management, attention-deficit disorder management, and traumatic brain injury assessment. Read more about Dr. Grundmeier here.
• CHOP announced that five of its physicians and researchers, including three core faculty members from Clinical Futures, Nadia Dowshen, MD, MSHP, AAHIVS, James Guevara, MD, MPH, and Joseph Zorc, MD, MSCE, were among the ninety-eight new members selected to join the American Pediatric Society (APS), one of North America's first and most prestigious academic pediatric organizations. APS is composed of over 1,200 health leaders who are shaping the future of pediatric care. Read more here.
• Clinical Futures Core Faculty Member James Guevara, MD, MPH, was appointed as the new co-director of the Perelman School of Medicine's Master of Science in Health Policy program with Marilyn Schapira, MD, MPH. Read more here.
• Researchers from CHOP and Vanderbilt University Medical Center were awarded a $7.37 million RC2 grant from The National Institutes of Health (NIH) to lead a five-year multisite project across the U.S. focused on kidney stone disease research. CHOP pediatric urologist Gregory Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE, and Vanderbilt urologist Ryan Hsi, MD, will lead the project. Read more in this CHOP Press Release.
• The CHOP Research Institute recently announced the selection of two new Frontier Programs for FY25. A recent Cornerstone Blog post highlights the CHOP Kidney Stone Center Frontier Program, which will integrate care for children with complex kidney stone disease across CHOP and create a data framework to transform the diagnosis and treatment of kidney stone disease. Given their expertise in kidney stone disease, Clinical Futures’ Associate Director of Clinical Trials, Gregory Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE, and core faculty member Michelle Denburg, MD, MSCE, will lead the Center along with colleague Stephen Master, MD, PhD. The program will develop novel diagnostic tests that enable early detection of kidney stones and personalized treatment approaches while also addressing barriers to testing. Read more here. 
• Earlier this year, Scott Lorch, MD, Director of the CHOP Center for Perinatal and Pediatric Health Disparities Research, was appointed to the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality (AMIMM). As a member of the AMIMM, Dr. Lorch will draw on his long history of health outcomes research and expertise as a neonatologist to answer policy-relevant questions related to maternal and infant health. Read more here.
• Dr. Scott Lorch, MD, MSCE, was also invited to serve as a member of the Health Resources and Services Administration's Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality. Read more here. 
• CHOP pediatrician and researcher Dr. Vivek Ashok, MD, testified in Downingtown, PA, in August, with support from Dr. Aditi Vasan, MSHP, to Pennsylvania's Democratic Policy Committee invited experts to share expertise from the Center for Violence Prevention and PolicyLab at CHOP related to the impact of gun violence on children and evidence-based interventions to ensure optimal safety for children. Read the press release here. 
• Clinical Futures announced that Dr. Jennifer Mautone, PhD, will serve as the inaugural Associate Director of the Pediatric Research Consortium (PeRC), CHOP’s primary care research network. Dr. Mautone is a highly accomplished psychologist and clinician-scientist who has been PI of large-scale trials in primary care with a high level of stakeholder engagement. Her work focuses on improving equitable access to high-quality behavioral health care. 
• CHOP’s Research Institute featured Clinical Futures’ expert Chén Kenyon, MD, MSHP, in this Cornerstone Blog post highlighting recipients of the 2024 Award for Excellence in Mentoring Research Trainees. Dr. Kenyon provides trainees with wisdom and learned experience from a professional perspective, as well as personal support and guidance that builds the confidence and know-how required to navigate life as a career researcher. His nominators praised him as an accessible and consistent mentor who provides invaluable career guidance. 
• Clinical Futures’ Pediatric Hospital Medicine fellow Dr. Michael Luke, MD, was one of eight early career researchers selected to be part of the Health Affairs Health Equity Fellowship for Trainees. 
• Fran Balamuth, MD, PhD, MSCE, was named Chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine at CHOP. 
• Ron Keren, MD, MPH, CHOP Senior Vice President and System Chief Medical Officer, and a Core Faculty Member in Clinical Futures, was named to Becker's Healthcare's 2025 list of "Chief Medical Officers to Know." Dr. Keren was the founding director of Clinical Futures prior to moving into healthcare administration, where he provides physician leadership for quality and operational excellence activities across the CHOP enterprise. View the full list of physician leaders here: http://ms.spr.ly/6041oVw8v. 
• The 2024 Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Conference was held on May 2-6 in Toronto, Canada. The PAS Meeting comprised more than 1,700 sessions, 2,000 posters, 130 exhibitors, and five days of learning content. Clinical Futures and PolicyLab were represented by more than 30 members who represented a variety of disciplines and research areas. Here is a schedule of Clinical Futures and PolicyLab researchers who presented. For more information, visit the PAS 2024 website. 
• Clinical Futures' core faculty member, Brooke Luo, MD, was named to the Philadelphia Business Journal's 2024 40 Under 40 List of honorees. Dr. Luo is an attending pediatrician at CHOP and serves as Medical Director for Health IT Safety. Her work has demonstrably improved the safety and reliability of CHOP healthcare technology platforms, including the Epic EHR. Read Dr. Luo's feature in the Philadelphia Business Journal here. 
• The American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) announced the election of 100 Active and International members for 2024, including Clinical Futures Core Faculty Member Dr. Elizabeth Lowenthal, MD, MSCE. 
• CHOP clinician-scientists and Clinical Futures Core Faculty members Sandra Amaral, MD, MHS, and Michelle Denburg, MD, MSCE, will dedicate the next five years to training the next generation of scientists and promoting diversity in the nephrology workforce, with new funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Read more in the Research Institute's Cornerstone Blog post here. 
• Over 180 CHOP physicians made the Philadelphia Magazine's Top Doctor list, including seven Clinical Futures Core Faculty members: Sandra Amaral, MD, MHS, Richard Aplenc, MD, PhD, MSCE, Susan Coffin, MD, MPH, Jonathan Edelson, MD, Jeffrey Gerber, MD, PhD, Robert Grundmeier, MD, and Gregory Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE. Read more here. 
• 23 CHOP physicians made Main Line Today’s Top Doctor list, including Clinical Futures Core Faculty Members: Gregory Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE. Read more here.
• The CHOP Research Institute named three outstanding Clinical Research Coordinators for the 2024 CRC RE@CH Awards. All clinical research staff were honored with a recognition event on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, at the Hub for Clinical Collaboration Auditorium. Clinical Futures’ nominees included:
  • Kim Albanowski Division of General Pediatrics
  • Amanda Bwint, Division of Infectious Diseases
  • Morgan (Zalot) Hammershaimb, MPH, Division of Infectious Diseases
  • Jenna Kiely, Division of General Pediatrics
  • Nadège U. Mudenge, Division of General Pediatrics
  • Jan Ramachandran MS, MPH, Division of General Pediatrics 

Now that you know more about Clinical Futures, we hope you’ll stay engaged with us. Subscribe to the Research in Practice blog and follow us on our LinkedIn and X/Twitter pages to read the latest news and research from the Center.