Hosted by Wyss Core Faculty David R. Walt, PhD, Diagnostics Grand Rounds brings clinicians with unmet needs to the Wyss Institute. The goal of these sessions is to inform technology developers about important clinical problems that can help them direct their technology development efforts. Presenters are asked to identify diagnostic needs that will have an impact on the quality of care they deliver.
A major challenge in the neonatal period is the establishment of physiologic stability, particularly for infants born prematurely or following pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes, intrauterine growth restriction, or gestational hypertension.
Three neonatologists from the Brigham and Women’s Department of Pediatric Newborn Medicine (DPNM) present current diagnostic needs related to the support of infants striving for physiologic self-regulation.
Dr. Rimi Sen will discuss neonatal hypoglycemia and the current inability to obtain accurate, continuous, and minimally invasive measurements of serum glucose levels in the at-risk newborn. Drs Richard Parad and Francheyska Silfa Mazara will then turn our attention to two areas of opportunity within the cardiorespiratory and oxygen saturation monitoring of newborns in the NICU.
Dr. Parad will discuss the untapped potential for automated synthesis of monitoring data to better characterize the respiratory maturity of the preterm infant, thereby informing care decisions that include the timing of safe discharge home.
Dr. Mazara’s presentation will focus on the difficulties presented by wired physiologic monitoring of infants in the NICU, particularly for parents who are learning to care for their little one and are preparing for life at home. The presentations will be moderated by Dr. Lise Johnson.
Dr. Johnson, a senior member of the DPNM faculty, is a newborn hospitalist and a 2020 BWH Distinguished Clinician. She is also the Associate Director of the Brazelton Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.