Primary Children’s Hospital

Primary Children’s Hospital (PCH) is a state-of-the-art tertiary care free-standing children’s hospital located in Salt Lake City.  PCH is a 289-bed facility equipped and staffed to treat children with complex illness and injury and operates in affiliation with the University of Utah School of Medicine. In 2014, PCH opened a new 6-floor 200,000 sq. ft. ambulatory services center adjacent to PCH connected via a covered walkway. PCH has over 70 hospital services and clinics and is the only pediatric center in serving a five-state region in the Intermountain West – Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Montana. It is the major referral center for children with rare and complex diseases in the Intermountain West, providing a patient source for translational research. Faculty from the University of Utah Department of Pediatrics provide care for patients at Primary Children’s Hospital, and the University of Utah pediatric training programs are housed within Primary Children’s Hospital.

The Center for Safe and Healthy Families

The mission of the Center for Safe and Healthy Families is to address child maltreatment through medical assessment, mental health treatment, education and research. The Center is an integrated clinical setting providing specialized medical evaluation to inpatients and outpatients with suspected child abuse or neglect as well as evidence-based therapies to children with evidence for or risk of post-traumatic stress disorder related to abuse or neglect.  As a regional Center within a tertiary care medical facility, faculty provide care to children from around the Intermountain West as well as consultation to families, child welfare workers, law enforcement agents, and legal professionals seeking assistance. Faculty members also work extensively as educators and advocates for evidence-based response to child abuse and neglect in our communities. Center faculty have a history of funding through the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, and contracting with Utah state partners for program development and evaluation. 

Site PI: Kristine A. Campbell, MD, MSc, FAAP

Kris Campbell is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah, Director of Research for the Center for Safe and Healthy Families, and Attending Pediatrician at Primary Children’s Hospital. Her career reflects a commitment to collaborative research supporting meaningful and measurable improvements in the social conditions and health outcomes for children with a history of adversity.  Her research has focused on the “missed opportunities” to ameliorate child and family risk at the time of CPS involvement for suspected maltreatment. Her interest in child maltreatment, childhood adversities, and social determinants of health can be traced across diverse clinical and educational experiences in medical school at Johns Hopkins, residency at the University of Washington, fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, and pediatrics practice on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona.

Node Coordinator: Porcia Vaughn, MSIS

Porcia Vaughn is a biomedical librarian who has a career history of collecting, organizing, and preserving data, and research outcomes. As an informatics enthusiast, Porcia enjoys operationalizing study designs and protocols that support clinical research and evidence-based medicine. As a CAPNET nodal administrator, Porcia has configured and implemented data collection practices for the University of Utah, Safe and Healthy Families and other CAPNET sites, including the Data Coordinating Center.  

Steering Com : Antoinette L. Laskey, MD, MPH, MBA

Toni Laskey completed her medical degree at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine followed by her pediatric residency at the University of Missouri-Columbia Hospitals and Clinics. She completed a research and clinical fellowship and a master’s degree in public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Dr. Laskey is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine and the division chief of the Center for Safe and Healthy Families at Primary Children’s Hospital.  She is the fellowship director of the Child Abuse Pediatrics fellowship at the University of Utah and the Medical Director of the Children’s Justice Centers of Utah.  Dr. Laskey’s clinical interests relate to the evaluation and management of the potentially abused child and her research interests include cognitive errors in decision making related to child maltreatment.

Research Development : Tagrid Ruiz-Maldonado, MD

Tagrid Ruiz-Maldonado is a Child Abuse Pediatrics fellow at University of Utah with Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. She completed her General Pediatrics residency at the University of Puerto Rico, University Pediatric Hospital after having received her medical degree from University of Puerto Rico, Medical Science Campus in 2016. She is board-certified in General Pediatrics, and will be eligible for child abuse pediatrics board certification upon completion of her fellowship in 2022. She is an active member of the Ray E Helfer Society as well as the AAP, Utah Chapter. Her interests focus on diagnostic research, and include improving the utilization of medical resources in child abuse evaluation.

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