CLEVELAND, Ohio — UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital may not be the biggest children’s hospital in the world, but the ideas and innovations that come out of out there have a widespread impact. 

• For the past ten years, UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital hosted “Pediatric Innovation Day,” giving clinicians and hospital staff the opportunity to submit an idea that would improve patient care
• The top 3 innovations receive $5,000 to help make their ideas come to life
• This year’s Pediatric Innovation Day competition received over 20 submissions

“Some of the things that have come out of our children's hospital has impacted every single patient, literally on the planet,” said Claudia Hoyen, director of pediatric innovation.

For the past ten years, the hospital has hosted “Pediatric Innovation Day,” giving clinicians and hospital staff the opportunity to submit an idea that would improve patient care. 

“We know that within our organization, it's those front-line people that know what the problem is and they know how to fix it. And so, we've got to get those ideas from those people. And then we also have to support them to get them done,” said Claudia Hoyen, director of pediatric innovation.

The top 3 innovations receive $5,000 to help make their ideas come to life.

This year’s innovation competition winners include Nadia Kobal, who has developed an idea to secure the a feeding tube to reduce the risk of leakage and irritation.

Dr. Shein and Dr. Clayton aim to develop a simple bedside system in which a sticker applied to a child’s chest can measure how hard the child is working to breathe.

And, Dr. Stephanie Harlow is proposing a shift in screenings during well child check-ups.

“Our well child checks are already quite long, are usually about an hour, and putting on the vaccinations and other screenings that we already do so we can integrate screenings like these into the time that they're in the waiting room, it could be a really nice way to include these screenings, without extended the visit,” said Stephanie Harlow, resident doctor.

Harlow says her idea is at the beginning stages, but she’s sure with the support of UH, soon enough, her dreams of more efficient and effective patient screenings will be a reality. 

“To be just a young intern, I’m excited because I will be here for three more years, and so, I can really invest in this project, and hopefully this is just the start of a lot of different interventions that will impact patient care,” said Harlow.

“We're here to support her. We're here with resources, and you know she's going to need financial resources. She's going to need to, you know, figure out how are we going to pay to get some of this screening done, you know, some of the screening tools we use, we may have, we may have to actually buy them,” said Hoyen.

Director of Pediatric Innovation Claudia Hoyen says over 700 ideas have been submitted since the start of Innovation Day and many of them have gone on to not only benefit UH hospitals, but others as well.

“We want every child to have the best outcome and experience. And so, we are willing to work together, not only within our own system, but within other systems, so that we're making the lives better for every kid that's here,” said Hoyen.

This year’s pediatric innovation day competition received over 20 submissions.