Laura Chen awarded grant to improve implementation of clinical practice guidelines for hyperbilirubinemia treatment

Laura Chen, MD, assistant professor, Division of Hospital Medicine, received a $4,000 grant from Cars Curing Kids to work with other pediatric hospitalist physicians at the American Family Children’s Hospital as part of the Academy of American Pediatricians (AAP) effort to align local care practices with those of national experts. Chen and other pediatric hospitalists will participate in AAP’s Value in Inpatient Pediatrics (VIP) quality improvement national collaborative called “LIGHT — Leaning and Implementing Guidelines for Hyperbilirubinemia Treatment.” Overall, the goal of this project is to utilize updated clinical practice guidelines from AAP regarding neonatal jaundice and to participate in the AAP quality improvement project. Chen and others involved in the project will aim to “safely do less”: decrease the number of infants being admitted to the hospital for jaundice and decrease the number of infants receiving phototherapy when they are not yet at threshold level. It is estimated that the hospitalization of nearly 40 infants per year at AFCH could be avoided by implementing the updated guidelines. The project began on December 1, 2022, and will continue until January 1, 2024.