Multicenter pediatric emergency medicine research and Rhode Island

Multicenter clinical research studies are often needed to address issues of generalizability, conditions with low incidence, adequate statistical power, and potential study bias. While pediatric research networks began work in the 1950s, and Rhode Island physicians have contributed to many of these studies, pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) collaboratives are relative newcomers. Since the mid-1990s, Rhode Island pediatricians have contributed to multicenter studies of diabetic ketoacidosis, bronchiolitis, asthma, quality of PEM care, meningitis, brief interventions for substance use disorders, point-of-care ultrasound, and pre-hospital triage protocols. In 2011, Rhode Island Hospital joined the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network, the first federally funded pediatric emergency medicine network of its kind. Its mission is to perform high quality, high impact PEM research. Since joining the network, Rhode Island Hospital has quickly become a productive and valued member of the network, portending a bright future for multicenter PEM research in the Ocean State.