Chair's Initiatives

Chair's Initiatives

Making an Impact

Nearly two decades ago, the Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) began the Chair’s Initiatives to establish new models of care in pediatrics and tackle some of the most daunting challenges in healthcare.

The program provides internal grants to support innovation, improvement and collaboration throughout and beyond Children’s Hospital. The Chair’s Initiatives program was started in 2006 by Alan R. Cohen, MD, then-physician-in-chief and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and Alison Marx, Operating Officer for the Department of Pediatrics. Today, the program continues under the guidance of Joseph W. St. Geme III, MD, who joined CHOP in 2013 as Chairman of Department of Pediatrics and Physician-in-chief of the Hospital.

It takes a team

Participants in the Chair’s Initiatives have included physicians, nurses, researchers, quality improvement advisors, data analysts, engineers, social workers, genetic counselors and others within many specialties and across many disciplines. These individuals provide an unflagging willingness to work diligently and collaboratively to move their initiatives forward and to find solutions to complex challenges.

The program represents an excellent opportunity for donors interested in helping incredibly bright, motivated teams to quickly bring change that truly benefits patients and families and sustain their efforts to create lasting impact. For more information about how you can make a gift, visit Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation or call 267-426-5332.

Chair’s Initiatives Awardees and Key Contacts

Since its inception, the Chair’s Initiatives program has helped 58 teams turn great ideas into reality. Reflecting the Hospital’s commitment to patient safety, we have chosen Initiatives focused on innovation, safety and quality of care.

Each initiative is given seed funding for two years. Round 8 (funded 2021-2023) has recently concluded and five initiatives are currently underway in Round 9 (funded 2023-2025). Scroll down to view past initiatives from Rounds 1-7; for additional detail, click on the Compendium for each Round.   

For more information about the Chairs Initiatives or to contact the awardees, please contact Alison Marx.

 

Round 9 Chair’s Initiatives

The following 5 projects are underway (funded 2023-2025):

Adolescent Specialized Treatment and Recovery Team (A-START)

Awardees: Krishna White, MD, MPH; Christina Herrera, MD, MSHP; Terri Randall, MD 

The goal of this program is to create a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, substance use disorder (SUD) assessment, treatment and recovery team for adolescents that uses a strengths-based family and youth-centered approach to wellness.

  • Decrease admissions/readmissions and emergency department visits for SUD-related conditions
  • Decrease stigma, barriers to care, and increase equitable access to care for youth with SUDs

Building Early Autism Diagnostic Capacity in Primary Care: A Model for Specialty and Primary Care Collaboration 

Awardees: Amanda Bennett, MD, MPH; Judith Miller, PhD

The goal of this program is to implement an innovative primary care/specialty care collaboration as a potential strategy to address a national (and local) crisis in access to timely diagnostic services for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), building on a very successful pilot project currently underway that has demonstrated that it is feasible and acceptable for trained primary care clinicians (PCC) to diagnosis ASD in a subset of young children.

  • Train PCPs termed “Autism Champions” to evaluate toddlers in their practice whose universal autism screening scores suggest a “high likelihood” of autism, leading to faster access to ASD-related services which has been shown to improve outcomes.
  • Implement referral model in which the children referred to developmental and behavioral pediatrics (DBP) are children for whom the Autism Champion is uncertain about the diagnosis, and these children are then seen for expedited appointments.

CHOP Outreach Center for Expertise in Pediatric Emergency Readiness and Training (ExPERT)  

Awardees: Khoon-Yen Tay, MD; John Erbayri, MS, NRP, CHSE; Grace Good BSN, MA, RN, CHSE; Mary Haggerty, DO; Theresa Walls, MD, MPH; Megan Lavoie, MD

The goal of this program is to establish the CHOP Outreach Center for Expertise in Pediatric Emergency Readiness and Training (ExPERT) which will build on existing educational outreach efforts and enhance them with ongoing clinical, research, and quality improvement work in neonatal and pediatric emergencies.

  • Build an online intake portal to allow interested provider groups to efficiently request ExPERT outreach and identify educational needs.  Develop a robust program of outreach education and training tailored to individual requests and document/disseminate the outcome of these efforts. Train ExPERT outreach ambassadors to deliver high-impact, evidence-based neonatal and pediatric emergency care training sessions.
  • Expand CHOP’s outreach efforts within and beyond our network to all providers that care for children and who seek to gain knowledge and training for pediatric emergency care. ExPERT will elevate CHOP as the premier institution for neonatal and pediatric emergency readiness, education, and training in the region.

Firearm Safety in Clinical Care

Awardees: Dorothy Novick, MD; Joel Fein, MD, MPH

The goal of this program is to employ an innovative, multi-disciplinary, inter-departmental approach to integrate firearm safety counseling and locking device distribution into inpatient and outpatient environments at CHOP.

  • Draw upon key aspects of current pilot programs to develop a cohesive workflow that is standardized while remaining adaptable to the wide range of health care settings across the enterprise.
  • Create and scale this program through the lens of health equity, based on principles of implementation science, and with a focus on sustainability by: designing and testing data-driven processes for engaging and counseling patients and families; enhancing and disseminating evidence-based provider training modules; offering Patient and Family Education materials through a variety of means for maximum flexibility; creating processes for safe storage device distribution; and facilitating widespread implementation by providing ongoing support and housing program elements in a “firearm safety toolkit” on the CHOP intranet.

Establishing a Comprehensive Pediatric Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) Clinical and Research Program. 

Awardees: Alexandra Borst, MD; Lauren Beslow, MD, MSCE; Allison Britt, LCGC; Elizabeth Goldmuntz, MD

The goal of this program is to establish CHOP as a Pediatric hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) Center of Excellence (CoE) in conjunction with the existing Penn HHT CoE to enhance clinical care and research for this autosomal dominant disorder of vasculogenesis characterized by vascular malformations in multiple organs. Build a robust clinical program for pediatric patients with HHT that combines clinical excellence with attention to coordination of care to meet pediatric-specific needs and prepare children for the transition to adult care. Implement a quality improvement measure with a novel educational tool to increase awareness and diagnosis of children at risk for HHT who present with signs/symptoms or family history concerning for the diagnosis.

  • Identify and address racial, socioeconomic, and geographic inequities that have been overlooked in HHT.
  • Create the framework for a clinical and translational research program that harnesses the existing Penn/CHOP resources of basic research in vascular biology, genomic discovery, and therapeutics.


Past Chair's Initiatives
 

Round 8 

The following 7 projects were funded in 2021-2023:

A Coaching Program to Support Development of Skills to Advance CHOP’s Clinical and Education Missions 

Awardees: Jay Mehta, MD, MSEd, Tash Kaur, MD, Anna Weiss, MD, MSEd, Dorene Balmer, PhD, Don Boyer, MD, MSEd, Daniel West, MD

Through this initiative, a team of multidisciplinary physicians established a coaching program within the Department of Pediatrics to support all physicians, including residents, fellows, and faculty, in developing and maintaining clinically-related skills. In building this large-scale expertise and infrastructure within the Department, the program aims to foster a growth-mindset learning environment.

Building an Infrastructure to Address Racial Disparities in Treatment and Outcomes in Children with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes

Awardees: Terri Lipman, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, Steven Willi, MD, Colin Hawkes, MD, PhD

A team at the Diabetes Center for Children has laid the foundation for interventions to address racial disparities in treatment and outcomes of children with type 1 (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Through seeking the perspectives of caregivers of patients as well as providers and staff, the team improved their understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in diabetes. At the same time, they put in place a comprehensive data infrastructure that will better equip care teams to identify and monitor disparities which may be used as a model in other disease areas. 

Developing the Infrastructure for a CHOP Center of Diagnostic Excellence 

Awardees: Irit R. Rasooly, MD MSCE, Richard Scarfone MD, Sanjiv Mehta, MD, Jillian Schaffer, MD, Monica Prieto, MD, Trenya Garner, Andrea Colfer, RN, Avram Mack, MD, Ursula Nawab, MD, Kathy Shaw, MD MSCE

This initiative created an institutional Center of Diagnostic Excellence (CDE). The CDE exists as a fully operational safety and quality program in CHOP’s Center for Healthcare Quality & Analytics, with a full portfolio of analytic, improvement, education, and research work aimed at achieving diagnostic excellence at CHOP. The CDE is structured around four inter-professional pillars: diagnostic safety, operational excellence, education, and patient-centeredness.

Family Connects – Helping Families Address Health-related Social Needs through a Novel Emergency Department Resource Navigation Program

Awardees: Lauren VonHoltz, MD, MPH, Danielle Cullen, MD, MPH, MSHP, Ashlee Murray, MD, MPH, Maria Quidgley-Martin, MD, Amanda Nomie, MSN, RN, CPEN, Kimberly Anderson, BSN, RN, CPEN, Karen White, LCSW

The program expanded upon a novel social resource navigation program entitled, “Family Connects,” initiated in the CHOP Emergency Department (ED) by a multidisciplinary group of physicians, nurses, and social workers in response to increased social need among families presenting to the ED during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team has built on the success of the program by further strengthening processes, enhancing direct connection with resources, and expanding the program’s reach. Family Connects has continued its integration of students, providing them with valuable hands-on experience and education on the impact of social determinants of health (SDOH) on the lives of patients and families.

Addressing URiM Faculty Retention via the Formation of a Faculty Ombuds Team: The Leadership Accountability Team

Awardees: Nicole Washington, MD, Angela Ellison, MD, MSCE

This project led to the development of a Leadership Accountability Team (LAT), a group of trusted liaisons who employ the principles of an ombudsperson to bidirectionally serve Under-Represented in Medicine (URiM) faculty and Departmental and Divisional leaders. The LAT aims to improve retention through building community for URiM faculty across career stages, assisting with addressing professional challenges, and equipping leaders with tools to appropriately support URiM faculty.

Resilience after Infant Substance Exposure: NFP-RISE, Compassionate, integrated care for infants with substance exposure 

Awardees: Barbara H. Chaiyachati, MD,PhD, Cindy W. Christian, MD, Meredith Matone, DrPH, Andrea F. Duncan, MD, MS

Building on the structure of the Neonatal Follow-up Program (NFP) at CHOP, a multidisciplinary team collaborated to provide the Resilience after Infant Substance Exposure (NFP-RISE) program, a specialized care track for infants with prenatal substance exposure. NFP-RISE integrates care across multiple specialties and serves to connect caregivers and infants to vital resources such as primary care, early intervention, community-based home visiting, and substance use recovery services. 

Sleep in Primary and Specialty Care Services (Sleep PASS): a model for Enhancing Primary Care Specialty Care Integration, Collaboration, Patient Outcomes, and Health Equity 

Awardees: Ariel A. Williamson, PhD, DBSM; Alexander G. Fiks, MD, MSCE; James P. Guevara, MD, MPH

Through this initiative, a multidisciplinary team set out to transform sleep disordered breathing (SDB) management in the CHOP primary care network. The team has taken a multifaceted approach with interventions that support both clinicians and families. Collectively, these changes have the potential to increase primary-specialty care integration and collaboration, improve patient outcomes for children with SDB, and reduce SDB-related health disparities.

 

Round 7 (funded 2019-2021) 

For more detail, view the Round 7 Compendium.

The Adolescent Initiative’s Mobile Health Unit 

Meeting youth where they are to provide health services

Download the poster presentation.

IMPACT: Improving Patient Access to Care and Treatment

Using evidence-based strategies to improve outpatient access

Download the poster presentation.

Communicating and Connecting Mental Health Needs of Patients

A better primary care process for meeting behavioral health needs

Download the poster presentation.

Broken Down and Rebuilt

Improving clinical event debriefings

Download the poster presentation. 

Endocrine Late Effects after Cancer Therapy (ELECT) 

Treating endocrine problems in children with cancer

Download the poster presentation.

Pulmonary Allergy Personalized Asthma (PAPA) Clinic

Integrating care for children with problematic asthma

Download the poster presentation.

Provider-to-provider Teledermatology 

Broadening access to dermatology diagnosis and treatment

Download the poster presentation.

 

Round 6 (funded 2017-2019)

For more detail, view the Round 6 Compendium. 

Cancer Surveillance Database

Elevating care for children at risk for cancer 

Download the poster presentation. 

Social Risk-focused Community Health Worker

Elevating care for children with diabetes 

Download the poster presentation. 

Pediatric Sepsis Program 

Elevating care for a dangerous infection

Download the poster presentation. 

Hemophagocytic Syndromes Team

Elevating care for children with immune dysregulation

Download the poster presentation. 

Epidermolysis Bullosa Multidisciplinary Clinic

Elevating care for a painful disease

Download the poster presentation. 

Integrating Care for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Elevating care for young people with lupus

Download the poster presentation. 

 

Round 5 (funded 2015-2017) 

For more detail, view the Round 5 Compendium. 

Explaining Genetics

Improving the understanding and use of genetic tests

Expanding Fertility Preservation

Offering fertility options to patients throughout the hospital

Fostering Health

Improving CHOP’s ability to create, use and recommend health apps

Fostering Healthcare Coordination of Children in Foster Care

Improving coordination of care for children in foster placement

Transitioning to Adult Care for Complex Patients

Helping those with chronic conditions and intellectual disabilities shift to adult care

Using Analytics to Reduce No-show Rates

Finding new ways to identify and help families that might miss appointments

 

Round 4 (funded 2013-2015)

For more detail, view the Round 4 Compendium. 

A Computer-Assisted Acne Management System

A smartphone app to improve acne care

Responding Effectively to Bullying and Victimization

Tools for pediatric practices to prevent bullying

Guidelines for Chronic Glucocorticoid Use in Children

Toward more careful use of steroids for pediatric patients

Thrombosis Prevention and Treatment 

Preventing blood clots in cardiac patients

Text Messages to Inform, Motivate and Engage Oncology Patients

Helping adolescents stay engaged and adjust after cancer treatment

 

Round 3 (funded 2011-2013)

For more detail, view the Round 3 Compendium. 

A Shared Decision-making Portal for Pediatric Chronic Illness 

Designing a computer portal shared by parents and clinicians to improve communication and care for asthma

Assuring Quality and Safety at CHOP Community Pediatric Programs 

Implementing a system to ensure that care at CHOP-affiliated units and programs at local hospitals is as excellent as at CHOP

Improving Hospital Care for and Service Delivery to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders 

Finding better ways to communicate with and care for patients with autism

Minds Matter: Improving Pediatric Concussion Management 

Defining guidelines for concussion care in emergency rooms, primary care practices, sports medicine and other settings

Preventing Outpatient Central Line-associated Bloodstream Infections

Reducing the at-home incidence of one of the most costly problems in healthcare

Transitioning from Pediatric to Adult Services: A Primary Care Based Model 

Helping young people with chronic illness move to — and stay with — adult primary care providers

 

Round 2 (funded 2008-2010)

For more detail, view the Round 2 Compendium. 

Anticoagulant Management Program

Improving monitoring and care for children taking “blood thinners”

Chemotherapy Tracking Project 

Computerizing records of cancer patients’ drug regimens

CHOPLink Implementation, Quality and Patient Safety 

Linking clinicians with computer specialists to ensure technology improves care

Collaborative Clinical Pathways 

Establishing a framework for care guidelines to be created more easily

Intestinal Rehabilitation Program 

Coordinating and improving care for children with intestinal failure

Unit-based Patient Safety Walk-rounds 

Providing a forum for safety concerns of families and staff

 

Round 1 (funded 2006-2008)

For more detail, view the Round 1 Compendium. 

Access Nurse Advisor and Care Coordination 

Creating nursing roles, systems and tools to support patients, families and providers in coordinating both access and care

ADHD in Primary Care 

Creating computer tools, conferences and other supports to help primary care pediatricians learn and manage patients with ADHD

Automated Appointment Reminders 

Implementing a computerized system to place standardized reminder calls across specialties to help families remember appointments and support continuity of care

Center for Bone Health 

Providing specialized care for children with poor bone health and helping establish international care guidelines

Center for Pediatric Eosinophilic Disorders 

Providing specialized care for rare allergic disorders, attracting patients from across the US and becoming a model for other hospitals

Database Development 

Developing databases and Web-based applications to support physicians in research and care

Multidisciplinary Cancer Survivorship Program 

Creating a monthly clinic where cancer survivors see oncologists, endocrinologists, cardiologists and other specialists, resulting in better care coordination 

Office of Fellowship Programs 

Coordinating and streamlining the application, evaluation, curriculum development and accreditation processes for all fellowship programs in the Dept. of Pediatrics

Pediatric Knowledgebase 

Creating a Web-based application that combines data about drugs with data about individual patients to help improve outcomes.

Sudden Cardiac Death Prevention 

Providing screenings for undiagnosed heart irregularities in children and teens and training in CPR and AED use for schools.