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.

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.

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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.

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.