Grant: Meetings Planning & Dissemination Grant: Reproductive and Child Health

The rarity of congenital malformations requiring neonatal surgical treatment has been a barrier to generating best practice medical evidence. The Canadian Pediatric Surgery Network(CAPSNet) is a CIHR-funded(MOP-69050) national network that underpins the CIHR Team in Maternal Care(MICare), and is responsible for national perinatal surgical goal-setting. CAPSNet has contributed significantly to malformation epidemiology and outcomes modeling for gastroschisis(GS) and congenital diaphragmatic hernia(CDH). The objectives for our meeting are divided into the main headings below: A. New proposals for CIHR operating grants: 1.Develop new grant proposals targeting outcomes improvement for other surgically correctable congenital anomalies amenable to antenatal diagnosis, surgically correctable in the neonatal period, and evaluable for short and long term outcomes. Our target malformations are those that have high morbidity and resource utilization, including (1)congenital lung malformations, (2)sacrococcygeal teratoma, (3)gastrointestinal atresia, (4)omphalocele, and (5)biliary atresia. B. Identifying Research Gaps and Needs 1.Critically evaluate the current CAPSNet database to make it more efficient and accurate, based on gaps/opportunities identified on a pre-meeting questionnaire assessment by abstractors, CAPSNet researchers and the steering committee 2.Develop strategic partnerships with maternal-fetal medicine(MFM) to improve prenatal data collection and encourage the use of data for research by MFM colleagues 3.Develop variables for long-term outcome surveillance. 4.Develop mechanisms for international collaboration with interested data-sharing partners(see attached letters), to define geographic and system-based variables affecting outcome. C. Knowledge Translation 1.Identify strategies and initiate plans for disseminating knowledge across Canada based on the findings of CAPSNet and CAPSNET-X (e.g.) improving outcome for CDH in low-volume centers.