# Supplement to Improving Family Meetings in the Pediatric CICU

> **NIH NIH K23** · CHILDREN'S HOSP OF PHILADELPHIA · 2021 · $54,000

## Abstract

Project Summary / Abstract – Administrative Supplement Request
The purpose of this K23 administrative supplement is to support the return to full productivity of Jennifer K.
Walter, MD, PhD, MS, following 12 weeks of parental leave due to the adoption of her infant son. Dr. Walter’s
long-term goal is to become an independent physician-investigator testing interventions in the field of cardiac
disease and pediatric palliative care. The parent K23 award has supported her training, mentorship, and
research experience towards her ability to compete for R01 grants supporting intervention studies in this area.
Pediatric advanced heart disease is a leading cause of non-accidental death for children. The children that die
do so in the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU), where many parents report being unprepared for the death and
as a result, are unable to make goal-concordant decisions. Thus, there is a critical need to create evidence-
based interventions that support teams and families in effectively communicating about treatment
goals. To achieve this objective, Dr. Walter has identified a cohort of parents of patients with advanced heart
disease and clinicians regularly attending interprofessional team meetings in the CICU who will participate in
family meetings. With this cohort, the Aims of the parent K23 award are to: (1) Use co-design methods
working with parents of CICU patients and interprofessional team members to custom adapt an intervention
called CICU Teams and Loved Ones Communicating (CICU TALC) to improve CICU family meetings; Assess
the acceptability (2a) and feasibility (2b) of CICU TALC on parent, patient, and team outcomes with 20
clinicians and 46 parents of CICU children; and (2c) Test the impact of CICU TALC on team and parent
behavior in family meetings. To date, Dr. Walter has completed the co-design of the intervention and data
collection for Aim 1 and pre-implementation data collection for aim 2b. Necessitated by the COVID-19
pandemic, she redesigned the training of clinicians on the intervention for a virtual environment. Once the
intervention implementation is complete, Dr Walter will be poised to collect post-intervention data from family
meetings and parental surveys to complete the evaluation of the feasibility of the study (Aim 2b) and the impact
of the intervention on clinician and family outcomes (Aim 2c). The proposed administrative supplement will
support qualitative methods team members with expertise in subject interviews, qualitative analysis, data
management, and quantitative coding of transcripts. These funds for qualitative methods experts to assist in
the assessment of the acceptability of the intervention and data management and coding of the family
meetings will enable Dr. Walter to focus on those tasks necessary to maintain scientific productivity, such as
completing data analyses, writing scientific manuscripts, disseminating findings to scientific audiences, and
drafting an R01 application.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10415477
- **Project number:** 3K23HL141700-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** CHILDREN'S HOSP OF PHILADELPHIA
- **Principal Investigator:** JENNIFER K WALTER
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $54,000
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-01-15 → 2022-09-23

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10415477

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10415477, Supplement to Improving Family Meetings in the Pediatric CICU (3K23HL141700-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10415477. Licensed CC0.

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