Since opening in 1941, Ranken Jordan has been committed to caring for children with complex medical needs.
At the end of 2024, we made a major step in advancing that mission beyond the walls of Ranken Jordan: we created an official research department and hired a full-time research director.
The goal of our research department is to show what we at Ranken Jordan already know to be true–getting kids out of their hospital rooms and using the power of play leads to better health outcomes.
How research at Ranken Jordan started
Scientific research and innovation is a given at academic health systems or research institutions that receive federal funding, but it is not expected of hospitals like ours.
But because we are committed to sharing our unique Care Beyond the Bedside model with the wider pediatric medical community, we decided we had to commit to scientific, published research to illustrate the model’s benefits. Medicine is an evidence-based profession, so any assertions need to be proven as objectively as possible.
In 2021, we created the Ranken Jordan Research Group. Patrick Hogan, MPH and Claire Wallace, Ph.D. utilized their training and backgrounds in academic research to design and implement a multiyear time-motion study at Ranken Jordan. This study measured how our youngest patients spend their time, which we must understand and optimize if we are to be successful in reversing the trend that children who are hospitalized for prolonged periods are at risk for severe developmental delay.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Child: Care, Health and Development, in 2023. Internally, it motivated us to improve Care Beyond the Bedside through the creation of the Optimization Zone. It also demonstrated our capabilities and the passion we have for sharing our innovative Care Beyond the Bedside model with the world. It inspired our leadership team to consider a research department in our next strategic plan.
In November 2024, we put plans into action and appointed Patrick Hogan as our Director of Research, Ranken Jordan’s first employee that would be committed to research full time.
Our research goals
It may be hard to believe but research about pediatric medically complex patients is a relatively new field. While there are researchers like Eyal Cohen and Jay Berry leading the way, there is little known about children with medical complexities compared to other patient populations.
To do our part, we are prioritizing research that addresses children with medical complexity in transition from hospital to home to formally describe and analyze the impact and outcomes of Ranken Jordan’s programs and care philosophy.
To quantify the impact of this model, we are focusing our research across the following areas:
- Impact/description of unique care philosophy
- Developmental outcomes
- Utilizing unique/rich patient population to contribute to the understanding of the management of children with medical complexity in the medical literature more broadly
How we’re already making an impact
Even though research is new at Ranken Jordan, we’re proud to say the wider medical community is already taking note of our work.
Eyal Cohen, an expert in the pediatric complex care space, cited our time-motion study in a paper published in BMJ Open (from the British Medical Journal), helping to illustrate why hospitals are sub-optimal environments for development.
Members of our team are also attending more conferences and getting the chance to speak to medical students and residents, like we did when we were invited to present at Pediatric Grand Rounds at the University of Chicago School of Medicine.
Most recently, we published a review paper in the peer-reviewed journal, Children, and we have more research studies in the works. We are excited to continue to share research and innovations from Ranken Jordan on a more regular basis and give children with complex medical needs the research focus they deserve.
How you can help
Our research moving forward is supported by The Quatrano Family Fund for Research and Publications, created from a generous gift by Dr. Ralph Quatrano, dean emeritus of Washington University and accomplished biology researcher, and his wife Lee Anne, a retired learning disability specialist.
If you’re interested in learning more about our work, I encourage you to read our latest paper in the peer-reviewed journal, Children, as well as our 2023 time-motion study.
If you would like to support our research, please consider giving to the Ranken Jordan Pediatric Hospital Foundation at rankenjordanfoundation.org/donate.
