UofL and Norton Children’s Hospital selected to lead part of national project

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The University of Louisville (UofL) School of Medicine and Norton Children’s Hospital will serve as a leader in the integration of trauma and burn care into a national network of pediatric response centers to build on preparedness efforts for future health disasters and global health events.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded more than $1.2 million over 5 years to the UofL and Norton Children’s project out of a $48 million award to establish a Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network. The amount awarded to UofL and Norton Children’s is expected to grow over the course of the next four years. The project will involve preparing for global health threats, including pandemics, and supporting communities in everyday pediatric readiness.

Dr. Charles G. Macias, chief quality officer at University Hospitals (UH) Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, will lead the project. Dr. Mary E. Fallat will head the UofL and Norton Children’s effort.

“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,” Macias 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.”

The network brings together five children’s health care facilities but also creates a network of networks—including the nation’s only two federally funded Pediatric Disaster Centers of Excellence (COE) which are funded through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and the work of the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Innovation and Improvement Center, funded through HRSA’s EMSC program.

The Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network includes:

UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, affiliated with Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (COE)
University of Louisville School of Medicine Department of Surgery and Norton Children’s Hospital
University of California San Francisco and its Benioff Children’s Hospital, Oakland, California (COE)
University of Utah and Primary Children’s Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah
Saint Louis University and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri

This network of children’s hospitals represents a broad geographic diversity and will serve as a hub-and-spoke model of expertise to support efforts for pediatric readiness and disaster/ pandemic preparedness by incorporating specific focus areas, called “domains,” such as trauma, equity, analytics and others, to define best practices as supported by the ASPR, HRSA, EMSC, and other existing workgroups.

Norton Children’s Hospital will be the hub for the integration of trauma and burns into the network, and Dr. Mary Fallat is the principal investigator for the site. The hospital is well-positioned for this effort as it has been a leader in pediatric trauma care for the region since the late 1980s, when the hospital administration supported Fallat’s efforts to build a trauma program at the hospital. Norton Children’s Hospital is a Level I American College of Surgeons verified trauma center led by Dr. David Foley.

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