Children's Memorial Online Rounds

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December 2011

Welcome to Online Rounds, an e-newsletter for healthcare professionals from Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Access free CME credit through faculty-recorded multimedia lectures or faculty-authored articles presented every other issue, and read news from Children's Memorial below.

Please forward this e-newsletter to colleagues who are interested in free CME opportunities and may wish to sign up for a free subscription to Online Rounds.

In This Issue

Earn up to 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™  toward the AMA Physician's Recognition Award by reading articles authored by Children's Memorial physicians, who hold academic appointments at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and responding to a post-test. Answers will be graded immediately, and an AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™  certificate will be issued automatically to qualified participants.

Release date 12/5/11
CME quiz must be taken before 12/5/12 to receive credit.
Target audience: Community physicians

Topics

• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome in Adolescents
  Educational Objectives: Identify adolescent girls who present with features of PCOS; evaluate possible PCOS cases using appropriate laboratory and imaging studies; describe treatment options for adolescents with PCOS
• Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections in Children
  Educational Objectives: Troubleshoot positive urine cultures in the setting of negative urinalysis or insignificant cultures in the setting of positive urinalysis; identify indications for imaging the urinary tract in recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs); initiate behavioral management in children with recurrent UTIs
• Neurointervention in Pediatrics
  Educational Objectives: Describe the role of neurointerventional techniques in the treatment of vascular diseases of the brain and spine; describe the role of neurointerventional techniques in the diagnosis and treatment of non-vascular diseases of the extracranial head, neck and spine
• Dermatology Quiz and Case Discussion
  Educational Objectives: Recognize the disorder described in the vignette and shown in the photographs; describe the clinical features and causes of the condition; discuss the management approaches

Visit our online Continuing Education section to view other available topics.

Heliport approval for Lurie Children's

On October 15, the Illinois Department of Transportation issued its final approval to operate the rooftop heliport at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, the new facility Children's Memorial is building on the campus of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. This review completes the regulatory approvals for heliport operations to begin when Lurie Children's opens in June of 2012.

Children's Memorial selected as 2011 Leapfrog Top Children's Hospital

Children's Memorial is one of only 10 children's hospitals recognized as a Top Children's Hospital by the Leapfrog Group, a national consortium of healthcare payers that evaluates hospital performance on meeting evidence-based patient safety standards. Quality measures for children's hospitals include the use of computerized prescriber order entry (CPOE) systems to prevent medication errors, appropriate intensive care physician staffing, safe practices and preventing hospital-acquired infections.

Children's Memorial named Top Performer in children's asthma care

Children's Memorial is among only 3 children's hospitals to be named as the nation's Top Performers on Key Quality Measures, a new program from the Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of healthcare organizations in the U.S. Children's hospitals were ranked only on quality of their children's asthma programs. Children's Memorial is recognized on The Joint Commission's Quality Check website.

Earliest steps in stem cell differentiation revealed

Regenerative medicine using stem cells is a fast growing field of research. Its applications to patient care are widespread, from repairing the body after injury, to re-growing fingertips, to fixing a failing heart. However, this emerging discipline suffers from a lack of understanding by researchers as to the basic mechanisms driving stem cell differentiation. Without this understanding, scientists are as yet unable to control the differentiation process, and thus have limited abilities to develop effective and consistent therapeutic applications.

In a new study published in Stem Cells and Development online in August 2011, Vasil Galat, PhD from Children's Memorial Research Center and colleagues looked at the earliest steps involved in human embryonic stem cell (hESC) development, from undifferentiated stem cells to epithelial cells, using cells grown in culture. Their results revealed a set of cellular changes that may represent the earliest markers of hESC transition to epithelium. These findings may help develop the much needed methods to control the differentiation process. This research was supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. Read more about Galat's work at the research center's iPS and Human Stem Cell Core Facility »