Neonatology Research
Our vision for research in BIDMC's Department of Neonatology is to discover and refine the best ways to care for our patients and their families. This is an activist, pragmatic vision that derives from our strengths as clinicians and clinical researchers.
Quality improvement is a rich and dynamic process that is both a research discipline and a clinical culture. It requires rigorous data collection and analysis, coupled with meaningful feedback, leadership and constant refinement of practices. While the direction may originate with professional staff, it must involve active participation at every level in every discipline, including the parents of the patients themselves. Areas of special expertise include:
- outcomes research
- clinical informatics
- decision analysis
- decision support
- econometric analysis
- clinical epidemiology
- randomized trials
- long-term follow-up
- health policy analysis
- organizational behavior
- program evaluation
To accomplish this, we have forged active collaborations with related clinical departments (obstetrics, medicine, pediatric subspecialty services at Children's Hospital), interdisciplinary collaborations (nurses, nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists), regional neonatal programs (in Massachusetts and Rhode Island), international neonatal programs (Kaiser Permanente Northern California Region, Canadian NICU network, Vermont-Oxford Neonatal Network), and academic institutions (Harvard School of Public Health/Department of Maternal and Child Health, Children's Hospital Clinical Effectiveness Program, the Picker Institute).
In addition to our own original and applied research, we desire to make our neonatal service "user friendly" to researchers in other departments in order to encourage their initiation of observational and interventional trials.
Our three-fold research mission is fully integrated: original research, applied research in quality improvement, and research training. Our research has successfully achieved major grant funding from federal and foundation sources to acquire hardware, analytic support and data resources. Our fellowship training in Perinatal Epidemiology and Health Policy is one of only a few such programs in the United States.