Research Center for Children with Special Health Care Needs
The Research Center for Children with Special Health Care Needs is an innovative enterprise devoted to the promotion of evidence-based practice in pediatric rehabilitation and the development, evaluation, and dissemination of effective models of care for children.
Housed within Franciscan Hospital and with consultation from the Health and Disability Research Institute at Boston University, the Research Center provides the infrastructure and expertise to investigate the effectiveness of new interventions and programs and to disseminate the results to a broad community of professionals, purchasers of pediatric services and families.
Established in 1997, the Research Center’s efforts cover the following four areas:
Research Initiatives
Our research activities are based on evaluating the best outcomes for children with special needs. Our activities include but are not limited to pulmonary rehabilitation, physical rehabilitation, spasticity management, fitness and health promotion for children with disabilities and development of pediatric outcome measures.
Partnerships
Community - The Research Center at Franciscan Hospital partners with national, regional and local private foundations, corporations, local universities, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to evaluate and promote excellence in health care and rehabilitative care for children.
National - The Research Center at Franciscan Hospital was the founding member of the Specialized Pediatric Applied Research Collaborative (SPARC), a national group of pediatric post-acute facilities pursuing a common research agenda.
Clinical Excellence
We are committed to outcome management and research methodologies that evaluate the effectiveness of services and ensure that the highest quality is achieved across all levels of the continuum of care.
Professional Training
The Research Center is committed to identifying the educational and training needs of health care professionals and providing specialized, educational programs.
Our Goals
- To evaluate the delivery of care
- To provide clinical outcomes analyses
- To examine new methods of care
- To provide training to pediatric medical and rehabilitation professionals