UH hospital gets its biggest grant

UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital receives more than $48 million

UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital receives more than $48million, it’s biggest grant.

University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital has received the largest grant in its history from the Health Resources and Services Administration to establish the Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network.

According to officials, the grant, totaling more than $48 million, will “lead the way nationally” on pediatric preparedness for future natural disasters and global health events like the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Funds will also support communities in everyday pediatric readiness.

The effort aims to build upon the work supported by the office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in 2019 to establish the Eastern Great Lakes Pediatric Consortium for Disaster Response, one of only two Pediatric Disaster Care Centers of Excellence in the United States.

According to a news release, Rainbow and five other children’s hospitals in Michigan and Ohio have laid the groundwork on a multi-pronged approach to address gaps across the disaster cycle spectrum of mitigation, preparedness, and response and recovery for nearly seven million children.

Dr. Charles G. Macias, chief of pediatric emergency medicine and chief quality officer at UH Rainbow, is a co-primary investigator of the grant award and will lead the new network.

“We began this work before the global pandemic, and 2020 proved how important it is for hospitals, health care infrastructures, government and private entities to work together to create a coordinated emergency response model,” he said.

“This grant is an amazing opportunity to grow a national model whose impact can inform all aspects of pediatric preparedness, from daily efforts to global health threats,” Macias added.

The Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network includes:

• UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital

• University of California San Francisco-Benioff Children’s Hospital

• University of Louisville School of Medicine-Norton Children’s Hospital

• University of Utah Health-Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital

• Saint Louis UniversityCardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital

These hospitals representing broad geographic diversity will serve as a “hub-and-spoke” model of expertise to support efforts for pediatric readiness and disaster preparedness, including pandemics, by incorporating specific focus areas, called “domains,” such as trauma, equity, analytics, and others, the release stated.

By the end of 2020, COVID-19 had affected more than 19 million adults and one million children in the United States.

As vaccinations became available, adult rates dropped but cases in children increased from three percent of all cases to 22 percent of all cases between May 2020 and May 2021.

“The pandemic’s impact on children and the health care systems that care for children extends beyond the diagnosis and management of infectious diseases to challenges with access to care and a behavioral health crisis,” said Dr. Daniel Simon, president of academic and external affairs and chief scientific officer at UH.

“This new network will help to accelerate researchinformed pediatric care transformation for sick and injured children across national organizations and infrastructures, and we are proud to be leading efforts here in Cleveland and the nation.”