Press Releases

May 10, 2009
R Baby Foundation Announces Outstanding Results of Year-One Grants and Launches Dynamic Online Platform for Medical Knowledge Sharing

New York – May 10, 2009 – The R Baby Foundation (R Baby), a non-profit organization whose mission is to dramatically improve emergency care for infants in order to save babies’ lives, announced today from their first annual Run / Walk fundraiser in Central Park that results from funded programs in major hospitals and medical schools have yielded outstanding findings that provide valuable insight for the broader medical community.

In tandem, R Baby Foundation announced it will soon launch a new secure, web-based platform, R Baby MedExchange, that will enable broad dissemination of these findings and bring together grantees with the medical community. The website, which will include research findings and medical news, is designed to foster collaboration between researchers, pediatricians, emergency physicians and other practitioners.

“Thanks to our generous corporate donors, the thousands of individuals gathered for our Run/ Walk, and others from around the country who have contributed online, we are saving babies lives,” said Phyllis Rabinowitz, co-founder and co-president of R Baby Foundation. “Our grants fund programs that ensure effective pediatric care, and we are thrilled to have seen such great results in year-one. We’re excited about the opportunity to share key findings more broadly with the medical community at large.”

Andrew Rabinowitz, co-founder and co-president of R Baby, added, “R Baby MedExchange will enable us to efficiently share information and create a community of professionals who are committed to dramatically improving emergency care for babies. By taking advantage of web technology, we can share the latest in science, protocols and communications programs that will make an immediate difference.”

In the future, R Baby MedExchange will host webinars and support Continuing Medical Education accredited programs, thereby increasing the effectiveness and efficiency with which infants are treated by medical professionals staffing emergency rooms across the country.

Highlights from R Baby’s first-year grant programs include:

  • The Maria Fareri Children's Hospital at Westchester Medical (MFCH) grant instituted a model of Emergency Departments Appropriate for Pediatrics (EDAP), which included compliance with evidence based guidelines and certification, education programs and ongoing telephone support at MFCH for community emergency departments within the Hudson Valley region including five hospitals, improving the healthcare of thousands of babies each year. R Baby intends to expand this program to additional hospitals each year.

  • The Patient and Family Centered Care Initiative at the Goryeb Children’s Hospital has created more effective communication between parents and the clinical team. In the long run it will reduce the number of medical errors and save lives. Parents are excited about the changes and recognize that this is producing better care for their babies. It is understood that medicine cannot treat patients without the involvement of family members and without doctors and nurses who respect family members.

  • The Mount Sinai R Baby Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship is focused on research and education in the field of life-threatening pediatric infectious diseases with a special focus on enteroviral infections in the first year of life. Surveys demonstrated knowledge deficits and led to the creation of an educational product on enteroviral infections that was compiled from all the latest global information with new conclusions. The manuscript was published widely and reached more than 10,000 emergency physicians. One key educational point emphasized was that even the most mild symptoms in a baby need to be carefully considered since these could be a sign of serious infection, which could prove to be fatal.

  • Columbia University set up an initial platform using multi-modal educational method to improve physician knowledge targeted to reach Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physicians, initially at Columbia, but soon spreading out into the entire NYC base of practitioners, with a national program ultimately contemplated. Achievements included the establishment of an online case repository with fifty cases including important clinical variants, Continuing Medical Education workshops, a telephone support service for discussions of actual, live cases and an online reference website including treatment guidelines and descriptions of evidence-based data supporting the guidelines. Virtual experts were also made available as an enhancement to this online, “digital” and ongoing educational and informational platform.

  • John Hopkins University found that 18 percent of babies/children admitted to hospitals were infected with a respiratory virus. Of these infected children, 17 percent were admitted for reasons other than flu-like illnesses and 8 percent had no symptoms. It is well known that infections can be life-threatening in babies. Delayed diagnosis of a viral infection in these babies can put other babies/children at risk of infection. The researchers are now determining if newer tests will better identify infected children who do not have symptoms and what the implications for hospitalized children are so all children receive the best care possible.

  • The University of Maryland Children’s Hospital’s Rebecca Rabinowitz Laboratory is working to identify up to 100 different infections in a single sample, reducing the two week turnaround to less than 12 hours for most lab results. Already, 10 important viruses can be detected in only three hours vs. a two-seven day norm. The lab team stepped up for the recent outbreak of swine flu and now offers an emergency resource statewide. Earlier infection detection i in babies can mean the difference between life and death.

  • NYU’s infant resuscitation simulation training program resulted in significant quality improvements including faster administration of life saving medications, improved speed of cardiac pacing, and facilitated more rapid ordering of blood tests. For one life saving procedure, 93 percent of physicians where successful after simulation training compared to 50 percent without this training (as a result of increased confidence, skills and knowledge).

  • In concert with The Halpern Family, R Baby Foundation funded a program at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, helping to advance the work of the Division of Transplantation Surgery and Ricardo Superina, MD, seeking to improve treatments and outcomes for children suffering from serious liver disorders. Their study looked at mechanisms contributing to improved nutritional status, reversal of encephalopathy and liver regeneration. Findings were published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery and presented at the American College of Surgeons, as well as a web-based education and advocacy supporting early recognition and treatment of liver disorders in infancy and childhood.

ABOUT R BABY FOUNDATION
R Baby Foundation was established in 2006 to organize and fund efforts to improve the outcomes of medical care for infants, particularly those who contract certain viral infections within the first month of life. The R Baby Foundation is dedicated to helping newborn babies with often-misunderstood viral infections and other infectious diseases receive the highest quality of care and service through supporting education, research, treatment, training and lifesaving equipment. R Baby is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization.

Learn more at www.rbabyfoundation.org