Newsletter
Newsletter Aritcle
April 2010 Newsletter Article
CORNET
What a wonderful time we had in Vancouver! This year's PAS meeting was especially exciting as we celebrated the APA's 50th Anniversary. Concomitantly, we celebrated the APA Continuity Special Interest Group's 20th Anniversary. As CORNET was a direct outgrowth of the APA Continuity SIG, CORNET too had much to celebrate! To add the finishing touch, we watched with excitement as Janet Serwint accepted the APA presidential gavel (which itself had a memorable journey from Danielle Laraque's home in NY!) marking the beginning of Jan's term as APA President.
Many of us have already experienced Janet's incredible energy, enthusiasm and mentorship since the beginning of CORNET when she shepherded it through its infancy as its Network Director. With each year the network has increased in size, stability and recognition of its commitment to its three-fold mission of studying the health care issues of minority and underserved children, health care disparities in children, and resident education in the Continuity setting.
The research network now "boasts" an enrollment of 96 pediatric residency programs and 116 clinical practice sites. This represents 44% of training programs, more than 4,500 categorical pediatric residents and care for greater than 600,000 pediatric patients. Funding to date has been provided by the APA, AHRQ, MCHB and the CDC.
The Vancouver meeting highlighted a number of CORNET's achievements including the very successful Quality Improvement Workshop led by Bill Stratbucker and several of his CORNET colleagues. Out of this workshop we are hopeful that at least three potential projects take form and develop into network studies.
CORNET also was invited to co-present in Denise Dougherty's AHRQ Quality Improvement Workshop and describe itself and potential opportunities for future national collaborations. Sharing the agenda with other national networks including PROS was an honor.
Sande Okelo's survey of Pediatric Asthma Care Education in Residency (SPACER) comparing the adoption by residents of the Asthma Practice Guidelines compared to the AAP survey results of practitioners was accepted for presentation at PAS and has a manuscript in development.
Two recent studies are coming to a close including the Bright Futures Project on Oral Health and our collaborative project with PROS on pubertal development in males. We should be hearing reports soon regarding the outcomes of these studies.
And while these studies above are finishing, CORNET is busy with 3 current studies. Kristina Simeonsson and John Olsson are in the midst of data collection for their study on Health Care of Pediatric Residents and their Families assessing access to health care and the role of peer and self-prescribing.
Maya Bunik's study on Integrating Mental Health Services in Pediatric Continuity Clinics is underway. The first phase assesses resident educational opportunities and patient access to services with a follow-up phase comparing various continuity strategies for providing mental health services.
The 3rd project is Peter Szilagyi's project assessing Adolescent Immunization within the Medical Home, a collaborative study between the Greater Rochester Practice Based Research Network and CORNET. The first phase is identifying various practice strategies with a follow-up phase to help determine best practices.
CORNET is thriving but needs enthusiastic participation from continuity sites to ensure its success and stability. We hope that you will continue to suggest projects as well as participate in ongoing ones. As mentioned above our research goals are threefold, but providing faculty development and research mentorship through collaborative research projects is a fundamental and core objective.
For those of you who attended PAS, we hope you returned from Vancouver as energized as we did! For those of you who unfortunately could only vicariously experience our APA 50th and Continuity SIG 20th Anniversary and CORNET celebration, we look forward to and welcome your participation. May you have a healthy, safe and rewarding summer as you welcome an excited new group of interns to your Continuity Clinics.
Please stay in touch with us, participate in as many studies as you would like and know that CORNET values your insight, suggestions, possible projects and comments on how we can improve the network, our faculty development opportunities and your participation!
Please contact us if you have any questions about the ongoing studies, enrollment and your ongoing participation.
Marilyn Dumont-Driscoll
Recruitment Director
dumonmd@peds.ufl.edu
Nui Dhepyasuwan
Research Associate, Network Coordinator
nui@academicpeds.org.
