The VPICU team members held a fall retreat on Monday, November 3, 2003, at the Executive Meeting Center in the Glendale Hilton. The primary focus of the retreat was to allow everyone that is involved with the VPICU to have an opportunity to update fellow team members on their individual projects, learn more about the projects of others, and brainstorm as a group for future planning.

Dr. Randall Wetzel’s keynote address...

The VPICU, along with the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI) and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Evaluations (PICUEs), were exhibitors at the 4th World Congress on Pediatric Intensive Care, on June 8-12, 2003 in Boston. The exhibit featured the Virtual PICU Performance System (VPS) software, the clinical data management application developed by the VPICU and NACHRI. Intensivists were abl...

A collaborative meeting between VPICU, NACHRI and members of the National Outcomes Center was held in Milwaukee on May 1st - hosted by Tom Rice, M.D., the director of the Division of Critical Care at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. The major goal of the meeting was strategic planing for and review of the VPICU database.  Assessment of ‘what have we got” and ensuring that the current VPICU Performance System (VPS) will meet our needs, as well as what to do with it and how we envision ...

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

The NACHRI-VPICU Focus Group met for three days (March 5-7) in Steamboat Springs Colorado. The VPICU Performance System software's facilitation of documentation and quality assurance was a central focus of the meeting. The utilization of the database was reviewed and it was noted that there were over 12, 000 validated and verified patients now existing in the database. Data is complete for the first three-quarters of 2002. The fourth quarter will shortl...

The National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions and the Virtual Pediatric Intensive Care Unit have completed development of their Virtual PICU Performance software. This software will allow collection of a wide variety of patient-specific Pediatric Critical Care practice information. It is hoped that this software will facilitate data gathering, individual ICU practice and support research studies in Pediatric Critical Care. In addition, practice definition and ...

Stryker Communications Corp., a nationally recognized leader in telecommunications equipment has been selected as the vendor to provide $1.5 million in engineering and peripheral equipment to facilitate real time interactive telecommunication between telemedicine network sites. Specifically designed and installed IP backbone with gateway and gatekeeper capability will route multiple calls via ISDN to participating VPICU intensivists. The gateway has the capability to accept telemedicine com...

The Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (DHHS – HRSA) awarded $694,000 to the Laura P. and Leland K. Whittier VPICU Telemedicine Project located at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

This funding (overseen by the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth) will be used to provide the five participating hospitals with equipment and remote site coordination. Participating hospitals include at this time, Antelope Valley H...

Ms. Baker’s previous telemedicine coordination at CHLA and participation in the Blue Cross of California Telemedicine Program was key in her selection. Ms Baker will undertake the following responsibilities for the VPICU:

January 2001, a multimillion-dollar request to support the goals and vision of the Laura P. and Leland K. Whittier VPICU project located at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles was granted. That request included :

VPICU/NACHRI database software manufacturing and distribution. The software will promote practitioner access to data and quality control measurements facilitating the improvement of research and pediatric care practices.

JPL automated data analysis. ...

Creating A Common Pediatric Critical Care Database - A Collaboration Between the VPICU and NACHRI

Randall Wetzel, Steve Pon, Greg Frongello, Tom Rice. The Laura P. And Leland K. Whittier Virtual Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and The National Association of Childrens Hospitals and Related Institutions.

Published in: Clinical Intensive Care, Vol.10(4),147,1999.

After decades of progress in pediatric critical care, wi...

Working with the Information Technology Division of the Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California the VPICU has explored multiple approaches to complex data management in pediatric critical care medicine. Borrowing heavily on expertise obtained from the data structure of the Planetary Data System, analogies to complex medical data management have yielded insights not only into data structure for advanced data bases but also into how to 'learn' from the data.