Advanced Research in Pediatric Emergency Medicine
UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine is dedicated to revolutionizing the quality of care delivered to children through critical national emergency preparedness and quality improvement initiatives.
Available Clinical Trials & Studies
HIKO STEC Study
Hyperhydration to Improve Kidney Outcomes in STEC Infection Research Study
Aiming to Revolutionize Care for Kids
Charles Macias, MD, MPH is an expert in pediatric emergency medicine who focuses on how best to design an integrated emergency services system to get care to the right patient, in the right place at the right time.
Pediatric Disaster Care Center of Excellence
Charles Macias, MD, MPH, UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Division Chief of Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Chief Quality Officer, Deanna Dahl-Grove, MD, Michael Dingeldein, MD and Regina Yaskey, MD are the recipients of a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response (ASPR). This grant established the Pediatric Disaster Care Center of Excellence, one of just two in the country. The Eastern Great Lakes Pediatric Consortium for Disaster Response, led by UH Rainbow and accompanied by five other children’s hospitals in Michigan and Ohio, is developing a multi-pronged approach to address gaps across the disaster cycle spectrum of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery for nearly 7 million children.
Pediatric Pandemic Network
University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital is a member of the Pediatric Pandemic Network, a network that strives to coordinate, prepare, and enable high-quality, equitable, research-based pediatric care in emergencies, disasters, and pandemics. The Pediatric Pandemic Network is supported in part by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of cooperative agreements U1IMC43532 and U1IMC45814 with zero percent financed with nongovernmental sources. The content presented here is that of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government.
Preparing families with children with disabilities and medical needs for disaster takes a village. The Great Lakes Pediatric Consortium for Disaster Response Region V for Kids (An ASPR Pediatric Disaster Center of Excellence) developed two just-in-time toolkits to help these vulnerable children and their families prepare for disaster incidents.
The Be Ready: Tips for Families of Children and Youth with Disabilities and Medical Needs toolkit offers a suite of multi-language infographics and just-in-time ADA compliant videos that are available via the website link and YouTube.
The Disaster and Families of Children with Disabilities: What Every Health Care Provider Needs to Know toolkit consists of a four minute video, infographic and provider teaching checklist.
Pediatric Sepsis – Collaboration Leads to Improvements
As co-chair of a national quality improvement initiative, Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO), within the Children’s Hospitals Association and in his leadership role at UH Rainbow, Dr. Charles Macias is employing both high-tech and high-touch approaches to help clinicians and healthcare infrastructures more rapidly identify patients with pediatric sepsis and help them more effectively manage those patients. Identifying those patients at risk with fairly sophisticated trigger tools, some built into the electronic medical record (EMR), and linking those kids more accurately into early care has been found to be the most effective intervention.
Health Services Research
Under the leadership of the EMS for Children (EMSC) Innovation and Improvement Center (EIIC) supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the EMSC Program provided UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and the EIIC investigators with a $10.5M research grant to improve day-to-day pediatric readiness and ensure high quality emergency care for children. The EIIC has supported a national QI collaborative to improve hospital and system readiness. With multi-state partners collaborating, each group focuses on any of four intervention bundles based on the pediatric readiness guidelines and other evidence-based content known to improve pediatric patient safety, timeliness and effectiveness of care. These bundles included 1) weighing all children in kilograms only 2) recognition and triage of abnormal vital signs 3) interfacility transfer and 4) disaster preparedness. The center has launched a national telehealth collaborative for children and youth with special healthcare needs and children with behavioral health needs.