Hospital receives $200K grant

With the recent acquisition of a coveted grant, UNC Hospitals now will research how better-organized health care providers can benefit chronically ill children.

UNC Hospitals received a $200,000 grant from the Volunteer Hospitals of America Health Foundation, rewarding it for innovative research practices and dedication to improving local health care.

UNC was one of about 450 health care providers that responded to the VHA's 2004 Creating Better Health Through Innovation campaign. Only six institutions received grants, ranging from $100,000 to $250,000. Recipients have until December 2005 to execute their programs.

UNC Hospitals will use its grant to create a cutting-edge community of pediatric subspecialists who will carry out testing and new strategies to improve health care for children with chronic serious illnesses, according to a VHA press release. The hospital will strive to create a new learning system related to physician board recertification.

Peter Margolis, professor of pediatrics, led the University's bid for the grant. He said the main benefit of the research is that it will help doctors put information into progress quickly.

"Children would benefit a lot more if we could put evidence into practice," he said.

Linda DeWolf, president of the VHA Health Foundation, said the main beneficiaries of UNC's program will be the consumers of health care as programs expand and improve locally and nationally.

"The VHA's goal is to create better health care through innovation and to give out grants to programs that will have an impact on the community," DeWolf said.

David Potenziani, director of Instructional and Information Systems at UNC's School of Public Health, will help coordinate improvements within the data system.

"(We will) look at data to see why differences between health care providers exist and, if one place has more success than another, this collected data will allow others to adapt their methods and improve," he said.

Potenziani also said the program came about as a way to respond to new standards imposed by the American Board of Pediatrics, which recently changed its certification program for doctors.

The new data system will give doctors access to a secure collection of information using a Web browser and will allow them to record and measure their progress in the program with a data exploration tool.

Potenziani said this new technology will be very useful as doctors increasingly are pressed for time. The technology reduces a complex situation into a simpler method that is much easier to understand, Potenziani said.

Although the VHA grant is just the beginning of the hospital's funding efforts for the program, Potenziani said it is "a crucial first step in research and fund raising."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.