UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital Awarded $1 Million in PCORI Funding to Improve Antibiotic Prescribing for Childhood Respiratory Infections

CLEVELAND, Ohio —UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital has been approved for a $1 million funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help improve antibiotic prescribing for children with acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs) in outpatient settings.

Antibiotics are commonly prescribed for children; assuring appropriate use of antibiotics can help prevent the growing problem of drug-resistant infections and avoid adverse side effects. The project aims to expand the successful inpatient pediatric antimicrobial stewardship program that UH Rainbow launched in 2013 into the ambulatory and emergency department settings for children, thus furthering the mission of improving antibiotic prescribing practices broadly across the health system.

The project will be co-led by Marlene Miller, MD, MSc, Pediatrician-in-Chief, UH and Chair, Department of Pediatrics at UH Rainbow, and Ankita Desai, MD, Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and Medical Director of the Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at UH Rainbow. 

“UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Primary Care Institute is Northeast Ohio’s largest network of pediatric primary care providers, serving families in 16 counties and providing care to more than 110,000 children from newborns through young adulthood,” says Dr. Miller who is also the Marsha L. Antonucci Distinguished Chair of Pediatrics. “Thanks to the funding support from PCORI we can expand our successful antimicrobial stewardship program from the hospital to our community healthcare settings for a greater impact on drug-resistant infections.” 

“Antibiotics are routinely prescribed to children for common things like ear infections, Strep throat, and sinusitis.  Unfortunately, it is estimated that over 30% of all outpatient antibiotic prescribing is considered inappropriate,” says Dr. Desai. “We must partner with pediatricians to develop new tools and guidance to decrease this number. We already have a lot of experience in antibiotic stewardship in the inpatient setting, and we are excited to use what we know to overcome the barriers to appropriate prescribing in the outpatient setting.”

“This PCORI funding award will support UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s to promote antibiotic stewardship for children with acute respiratory tract infections,” said PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, M.D., MPH. “This project exemplifies PCORI's commitment to advancing the uptake of evidence into healthcare delivery settings to enable parents, caregivers, and clinicians to make informed healthcare decisions and improve care delivery and health outcomes. We look forward to following the project’s progress and collaborating with UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s to share its results.” 

This project aims to improve antibiotic prescribing and stewardship by implementing findings from a PCORI-funded patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) study demonstrating that narrow-spectrum antibiotics were as effective as broad-spectrum antibiotics in treating acute respiratory tract infections among children, with fewer side effects.  

University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s is a participant in PCORI’s Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII) and was selected for funding through a PCORI funding opportunity recruiting HSII participants to promote evidence-based practice, based on findings generated from PCORI-funded patient-centered CER. HSII aims to reduce the estimated 17-year gap between evidence publication and clinical application. This initiative recognizes health systems’ practical experience and real-world insights are crucial for sustainable, large-scale implementation of practice-changing findings in clinical care.

This funding award has been approved pending the completion of PCORI’s business and programmatic review and issuance of a formal award contract.

PCORI is an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress with a mission to fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research that provides patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence-based information they need to make better-informed health and healthcare decisions.