National Studies

Miller Children’s participates in various national research studies in collaboration with other national children’s hospitals to ensure the pediatric health care community stays at the forefront of leading treatments, patient care best practices and new technology. In This collaboration has led to landmark discoveries, including new surgical techniques, innovative cancer therapies and methods to prevent common childhood illnesses.

Asthma Home Management Plan

Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach has joined other children’s hospitals across the nation to partner with the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutes (NACHRI) on the asthma home management plan. Miller Children’s is working on ensuring that home management of asthma is explained to the family, recorded in their medical record and the parents will monitor the child’s lung function at home with a portable peak expiratory flow (PEF). This provides an objective measurement of the status of a child's asthma that can be used to help guide therapy.

Hem/Onc CA-BSI

Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach has joined other children’s hospitals across the nation to partner with the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutes (NACHRI) to decrease blood stream infection rates for central lines in the pediatric hematology/oncology specialty. This research project will collect important quality and safety data that will be shared with other children’s hospitals to help improve care and best practices for pediatric hematology and oncology patients.

Children’s Oncology Group (COG)

The Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center (JJCCC) at Miller Children’s is one of the primary institutions that comprise the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), an international, cooperative childhood cancer research network that focuses on identifying cancer causes and pioneering new treatments and cures at children’s hospitals. Participation in COG advances research and allows JJCCC to offer the latest and most effective treatments to young patients. In addition, JJCCC is involved in a broad range of research programs involving blood disorders, cancers, psychosocial issues and long-term survival. The JJCCC enrolls patients in a national tumor residency.

Cytokines

Pediatric pulmonary fellows, assisted by the program director, conduct successful research projects addressing the role of various pharmacological agents in bronchial asthma of infants and young children. The application of physiological measurements of lung mechanics is an integral part of the training program. In addition, the Pulmonary Center at Miller Children’s emphasized the role of Cytokines in the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma and cystic fibrosis. Two of Miller Children’s fellows conducted and focused their research activities on Cytokines, which were published and presented in national meetings.

Evidence-Based Design

This is original research in collaboration with Taylor Architecture, Child Life, and Miller Children’s outpatient surgery department. The study tracks pre-procedural anxiety, environmental satisfaction, health care satisfaction, staff satisfaction and the efficacy of Child Life interventions as Miller Children’s transitions from the current shared adult/pediatric outpatient surgery environment to Miller Children’s new exclusively pediatric surgery center.

PALISI

Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach belongs to PALISI, or Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators. PALISI is a collaboration of clinical researchers with the goal of improving the care and health outcomes of critically ill children. Fifty pediatric intensive care units across the United States and Canada participate in this network focusing on identifying optimal support, prevention and therapeutic strategies for acute lung injury, sepsis, multi-organ failure and other acute, life-threatening pulmonary or systemic inflammatory syndromes.

Virtual NICU (VNICU)

The neonatal intensive care unit at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach is a part of a research program called, a Virtual NICU, that records critical data of neonates. This information goes into a database that can be transmitted electronically and seen nationally by other neonatal intensive care units to help determine an optimal setting for NICU babies and record data to improve and create evidence-based medicine for premature and critically ill babies.

Virtual PICU (VPICU)

As a member of the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, the PICU at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach is participating in its Virtual PICU Performance System (VPS). The VPS system – a clinical database dedicated to standardized data sharing and benchmarking among PICUs with a focus on quality and comparative, multisite data capabilities – ensures the necessary data infrastructure within its initiative to eradicate catheter-associated blood stream infections (CA-BSI) in children.

VPS participants collect and share information on PICU quality control, patient and hospital measures, diagnoses, interventions, discharge, organ donation and pediatric risk of mortality scores. Hospitals can compare patient mix, performance and outcomes with peers. VPS also tracks and trends individual and aggregate clinical patient data, facilitates patient flow, documents patient care and collects data for multisite research studies.