Congratulations to Dr. Alison M. Elliott (Medical Genetics), who was awarded 2024 Reach funding alongside 33 other recipients.
The Michael Smith Health Research BC Reach Program supports the sharing of research evidence to “reach” intended audiences, through co-development of events, activities and/or tools (such as a social media initiative), while simultaneously improving the knowledge translation capabilities capacity of research and health professionals.
Dr. Alison Elliott
Led by Dr. Elliott and co-lead Dr. Horacio Osiovich (Pediatrics), the project is titled Developing Educational Tools for Neonatal Intensive Care Staff Regarding Rapid Genome-wide Sequencing. Genomic sequencing is now available to babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) at BC Women’s Hospital and Victoria General Hospital. For babies in NICUs, this testing provides an improved ability to diagnose genetic disorders, which is particularly helpful for difficult-to-diagnose genetic conditions (ex: rare genetic conditions) where the babies are also born premature. However, without genetic counsellors in the NICU teams, there is lacking confidence in the use and interpretation of the genomic sequencing.
The project (with Genome BC as a partner), aims to meet this gap through the development of educational tools that can be utilized by the NICU staff.