Injury Prevention at the Bedside.

It is estimated that 1 in 4 children will have an unintentional injury that requires medical attention or intervention by the time they are 21 years of age. Emergency department staff have an opportunity to engage families in injury prevention messaging right at the bedside. Having staff who participate in an injured patient's care can better prepare a family or prevent another injury. Our emergency department staff identified these moments as prime teaching opportunities and worked with our trauma team to develop resources and education for patients and families that present to our department.

Creating a comprehensive bicycle safety program.

Trauma centers must play a role in injury prevention. Pediatric trauma centers have the ability to create injury prevention programs targeting all children. After analyzing our trauma registry data, we determined that bicycle injuries are a significant mechanism of injury in children and developed strategies aimed at preventing such injuries. Along with support from Kohl's Cares, we are able to achieve our mission of keeping children in our community healthy and safe. Our comprehensive bicycle safety program is targeted to various ages and learning styles and aims to increase bicycle safety and helmet use among children in our region.

Mannose binding lectin (mbl2) haplotype frequencies in solid organ transplant patients and correlation with MBL protein levels--evaluation of complement-mediated effector pathway deficiency.

Mannose-binding lectin (MBL) is a protein critical in activating complement. Patients with wild-type and variant mbl2 genotypes have high or low concentrations of MBL protein, which is known to increase susceptibility to transplant rejection or infection, respectively. Our objective was to determine mbl2 genotype frequencies in future solid organ transplant recipients in order to optimize their induction and maintenance immunosuppressive therapies, and to provide MBL reference data for this unique population. We genotyped 1687 patients, and concurrently measured protein in 807 of them, during 2010-2011. Frequencies of the structural allele SNPs in our population were similar to those of other studied populations; however, Black patients with the same intermediate and deficient mbl2 genotypes as Caucasians produced significantly lower levels of MBL protein; therefore, within this population more genotypes should be considered MBL-deficient. Overall, the most critical parameter in determining serum MBL protein concentration was genotype, which was independent of other factors including ethnicity, gender, or diseased native organ type.