Transformational Pediatrics

Ana Cohen, PhD, discusses Children's Mercy's cutting edge genetic testing, and how they're improving access by expanding research to rural communities.

Stephanie Burrus, DO, discusses physician burnout, and how Children's Mercy Kansas City's Center for Wellbeing is addressing it at their institution.

The Piccolo device is an innovative and minimally invasive way to close the Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in pediatrics. Dr. Rockefeller talks about how the Piccolo came to fruition, the benefits, and what else is on the horizon for the PDA closure world.

Bactrim is a commonly prescribed antibiotic used to treat a variety of conditions, including urinary tract infections, acne and skin and soft tissue infections. The American Academy of Dermatology recently revised its guidelines discouraging the use of Bactrim to treat acne based on research conducted by my next guests – Dr. Jenna Miller, pediatric intensivist, and Dr. Jennifer Goldman, Infectious Diseases, of Children’s Mercy Kansas City.

Children’s Mercy Kansas City, one of the nation’s leading independent pediatric health organizations, announced it is the first health care system to use 5-base HiFi sequencing, the world’s most-advanced genomic sequencing technology from PacBio, in the clinical setting to accelerate diagnoses for even more patients and families.

To accelerate precision medicine for pediatric oncology, Children’s Mercy Kansas City, together with its Research Institute (CMRI), pioneered a new whole-exome-sequencing-based genetic test for all children diagnosed with cancer. While many pediatric research institutions in the country conduct genetic sequencing of tumors, CMRI is one of the few institutions performing both research and clinical sequencing in-house on both tumor and normal DNA samples.

Incredible advances in the care of patients born with single-ventricle heart disease have led to significantly better quality of life and survival. Complex surgical palliation culminating in the Fontan procedure is effective and can allow patients to grow and develop similar to their peers. Unfortunately, changes related to Fontan anatomy lead to stress and increased pressure on the liver, known as Fontan-associated liver disease. These stresses can cause scar tissue to form and—rarely—liver cancer to form. Dedicated liver care is vital to providing Fontan patients with the healthiest life possible. 

In this episode, Dr. Mark Clements leads a discussion focusing on population health management and pediatric type 1 diabetes.

Data science -- often discussed with terms like artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, data goverernance -- has the potential to transform every aspect of health care, from the patient experience to how, when and where care is provided, and improving outcomes. In this Transformational Pediatrics episode, Mark Hoffman, PhD, Chief Research Information Officer at Children's Mercy Kansas City, discusses the challenges and opportunities for data science within pediatric health care and gives examples where it is already making a difference for children today.

The health care sector has begun to embrace coaching to promote resilience and innovation during a time of massive disruption while also cultivating healthier workplace cultures. In this podcast, Alyssa Stephany, MD, Director of the Physician Leadership Center at Children's Mercy Kansas City shares how professional and peer coaching can help reduce burnout, increase job satisfaction, and improve the overall provider experience of health care, while also having a positive effect on patient care.