Presenter Profile
Melissa H. Kwan, MD, FAAP
McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Houston
Director of Community Pediatric Hospital Medicine
Chief of Staff, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land
melissa.h.kwan@uth.tmc.edu
Melissa Kwan, MD, FAAP is an Assistant Professor with the UTHealth Houston’s McGovern Medical School. She attended UT Health Science Center of San Antonio for medical school and completed her residency with the Johns Hopkins Harriet Lane Pediatric Residency Program. She is the Director of Community Pediatric Hospital Medicine for the Memorial Hermann Community Hospitals and the Chief of Staff for Memorial Hermann Sugar Land. While she loves developing a growing community hospitalist program, she is also passionate about preventing injuries for kids. She serves a co-chair for the TPS Committee for Injury Prevention and the Co-PI for the UTHealth Houston and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital Injury Free Coalition for Kids chapter. With these groups, she’s had the opportunity work with a talented team to develop programing and education for students, residents, physicians, and most importantly, the community where they live on child passenger safety, safe infant sleep, water safety, and firearm injury prevention. When she’s not at work on injury prevention, she spends her summers working with children at Texas Lions Camp in Kerrville, TX, a camp for kids with physical disabilities, cancer, and type 1 diabetes. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of her colleagues, mentors, friends, and family; most notably her talented architect husband, Danny Rigg, and her energetic son, Alexander.
Presentations
Making a Splash with Drowning Prevention Education in a Large Metropolitan Area
Melissa Kwan, MD, FAAP
Marisol Nieves, LMSW, CPST
Sarah Beth Abbott, BS, EMT-LP
Zuha Khan, BS
Sandra McKay, MD, FAAP
Drowning is the second leading cause of death for children ages 1-4 years old and the second leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 5-14 years old. To address this, we partnered with the local community hospital, medical school, and community organizations to develop an interactive drowning prevention program for caregivers and children in a suburb of a large metropolitan area.
Planning meetings started 12 months prior to this event. A grant from the state AAP chapter foundation provided the initial funding. We worked with our local community hospital, the YMCA, and two local drowning prevention foundations for initial planning and coordination. Other community partners were also invited to provide their expertise the day of the event.
Activity stations were designed so volunteers could set up with a prepackaged kit. A passport was developed to encourage families to stop at each booth.
Volunteers were recruited through the medical school and community hospital. Advertising was managed by the hospital’s marketing department.
The day opened with the local drowning prevention foundation sharing their stories about how drowning has affected their lives and education. Families then went to activity stations staffed by our volunteers with a focus on safe rescue and personalized education.
100 individuals registered, 53 participants attended, and there were 41 volunteers. Pre- and post-surveys showed 90% of respondents reported having an open body of water within 10 minutes walking distance from their home. After the event, all respondents reported feeling confident that they could identify things in their home or nearby that might be dangerous for their child around water. Prior to the event, only 55% could report this. After this event 75% reported knowing where to find help to make their home safer and prevent drowning. Overall, 55% reported not having enough money to pay for changes at home to keep their children safe from drowning. Most respondents reported that their income was over $75k annually. A three-month post-event survey is pending.
Developing a successful community event is a collaborative effort. Verbal feedback revealed that caretakers think their children are getting drowning prevention education in swim lessons, but the adults were not. While this is a gap that we can fill with similar events, this is also an opportunity for swim instructors and schools.
90% of respondents lived within 10 minutes walking distance of a body of water that they did not have the ability to change or implement safety measures. This is a gap that can be filled through working with our communities who manage these bodies of water.
For future events, we plan to extend the invitation to more community partners. The activity stations were created with the intention to be reused with instructions so volunteers could set up with minimal interventions, so this initial investment can be used again.
1. Describe how to develop and fund a successful educational program within a larger community event.
2. Examine funding sources and partnerships to help make an event successful.
3. Identify how a program like this can be replicated in other arenas.
Making your Dollar Stretch in Injury Prevention Programming
Melissa Kwan, MD, FAAP
Sandra McKay, MD, FAAP
Sarah Beth Abbott, BS, EMT-LP
Marisol Nieves, LMSW, CPST
Funding is a challenge for any project, and recently, it seems to have gotten even more complicated with current cuts to budgets that were once considered consistent. For younger faculty and injury prevention professionals, finding funding is even harder as they are developing their experience and contacts. Despite these obstacles, the need for injury prevention outreach continues. Through this workshop, we’d like to take participants through planning and developing resource ideas for a new project or a program that has been in development.
The first part of the workshop is establishing a topic and framework for a specific project by establishing goals, stakeholders, a target audience, timelines, and outcome measures. We will also share common pitfalls and learning opportunities so that others can avoid these same mistakes. Through group discussion, we will also explore ensuring that program development is as equitable as possible and considers as many unintentional consequences as possible.
The second part of the workshop will focus on exploring funding opportunities through traditional and non-traditional avenues. We will also work on drafting initial communications with potential sponsors and discuss possible institutional restrictions and challenges. The focus will be on smaller capital and deliverable resources for pilot projects with the goal of developing them into long-term or recurrent projects with results that can then be used in future proposals for continued support with larger agencies.
1. Construct the framework for a pilot injury prevention program
2. Determine priorities and potential challenges for a pilot injury prevention program
3. Explore funding and resource opportunities for a pilot injury prevention program