Spotlight: The Kid Experts At Home neonatal monitoring program
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The Kid Experts® At Home is a cutting-edge home monitoring program within the neonatology program at Children’s Minnesota. Infants in the neonatal unit who meet certain criteria can be discharged from the hospital sooner while expert care and monitoring continues at home. Eligible babies are preterm and gradually learning to feed, but they are otherwise healthy. The babies have a nasogastric (NG) tube when discharged and will continue with a combination of oral and tube feedings.
Families are given a weighing scale and secure access to a specialized app for the caregiver’s tablet or smartphone to input information about the baby for the neonatal team. The caregivers are trained by the neonatal team on proper NG position, oral feeding techniques, CPR, and use of the app. They will have the full support of the neonatal team in the comfort of their own home.
The Kid Experts® At Home is the only program of its kind in Minnesota. It launched in 2021 as a pilot study and now it’s available at all three of Children’s Minnesota’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) locations. Read more about the program here.
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Study: Standard of care changes for acute lymphoblastic leukemia
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Two Children’s Minnesota kid experts recently published a study about acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Blood journal, the flagship, peer-reviewed medical journal from the American Society of Hematology. Dr. Nathan Gossai, pediatric oncologist and director of the leukemia and lymphoma program and Dr. Stuart S. Winter, chief of research and medical innovation at Children’s Minnesota used two consecutive, international phase 3 clinical trials to determine the following:
- Patients with central nervous system (CNS)-1 and CNS-2 status have similar outcomes across two large studies with divergent therapies, including with and without cranial radiation therapy (CRT).
- Patients with CNS-3 T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with nelarabine had similar overall survival (OS) as CNS-1 and CNS-2, and thus should receive nelarabine as standard of care.
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This is the largest study of CNS status in T-ALL patients. Limiting cranial radiation exposure to kids will help reduce some of the side effects of CRT including neurocognitive deficits, endocrine complications, and secondary malignancies. Read more about the study here.
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Neonatal transport team operates as extension of NICU
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The Children’s Minnesota Neonatal Transport Team safely transports more than 500 critically ill neonates each year from any location in the Upper Midwest to our NICU campuses in Coon Rapids (Level III), St. Paul (Level III) and Minneapolis (Level IV). The Neonatal Transport Team operates as an extension of the NICU by providing a neonatal nurse practitioner and a highly trained respiratory specialist to stabilize and transport critically ill newborns. The team has the capability to transfer neonates by ambulance, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.
Transport services are available 24/7 and the team is prepared with all the capabilities of the NICU, including high frequency ventilation, nitric oxide, and active body cooling. With more than 35 years of experience, the Neonatal Transport Team has a long history of excellence in stabilization, management, and transport of critically ill neonates.
Read more about the Neonatal Transport Team here or call the Children’s Minnesota Physician Access line at 866-755-2121 to make transport arrangements.
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Children’s Minnesota Minneapolis campus is re-verified as Level I pediatric trauma center
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Children’s Minnesota Minneapolis hospital has been re-verified as a Level I pediatric trauma center by the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma. The organization’s Level I pediatric trauma center is Minnesota’s only Level I pediatric trauma center in a hospital dedicated solely to kids. It has the largest pediatric trauma team, including pediatric surgeons and critical care experts, ready to care for children of all ages 24/7.
More than 1,100 pediatric trauma patients were treated from around the region at the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses last year, and many more are cared for in the two hospitals’ emergency departments, which see more than 90,000 visits annually.
Read more about Children’s Minnesota’s trauma services in the 2022 Trauma Services Annual Report.
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