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Research Overview

Jay G. Berry, MD, MPH, is a general pediatrician and hospitalist who specializes in the care of children with medical complexity.  Much of his research examines care delivery, clinical outcomes, and health resource utilization of this important population of children.  Dr. Berry’s current NIH and foundation-funded research on children with medical complexity includes the development and use of contingency plans, the use of machine learning methods to assess the impact of co-morbid conditions on health and utilization, and the development and use of standards of hospital discharge care.

Active Projects:

2009-2014 Improving Healthcare Integration for Children with Tracheostomy

NICHD K23 HD058092-01A1
Principal Investigator

The goal of this project is to improve healthcare integration and decrease re-hospitalizations for medically-complex children using an innovative information technology application (personally-controlled health record).

2012-2014 Hospital Discharge Planning for Children

Principal Investigator

The goal of this project is to develop national standards of discharge care for hospitalized children.

2014-2015 Innovative Research Methods to Study Children with Multiple Chronic Conditions

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R21; approved for funding by Council)
Principal Investigator

The goals of this project are:

  1. To adapt for children a publicly available, comprehensive diagnosis classification scheme to describe identify and describe the clinical diagnoses of children with multiple chronic conditions (CMCC);
  2. to employ an innovative, machine learning method to systematically identify the most consequential interactions of coexisting chronic conditions in CMCC and to predict high resource utilization in these children.

Research Background

Dr. Berry received his MD from the University of Alabama School of Medicine in 2001.  He completed pediatrics residency at Primary Children’s Medical Center at the University of Utah in 2004.  Dr. Berry completed the Harvard Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship and the Harvard School of Public Health Clinical Effectiveness Program in 2006.  He founded the Complex Care Quality Improvement Research Collaborative through the Children’s Hospital Association.  He is co-chair of the Academic Pediatrics Association Complex Care Special Interest Group.  Dr. Berry is the recipient of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Outstanding Achievement for Scientific Contribution Using HCUP Award, the Young Clinician Research Award from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, and the AcademyHealth Nemours Child Health Services Research Award.  His research has been featured in U.S News, WBUR (Massachusetts Public Radio), and the Wall Street Journal.

Selected Publications

  1. Berry JG, Graham D, Graham R, O’Brien J, Hall M, Roberson D, Goldmann D. Predictors of clinical outcomes and hospital resource for children following tracheotomy: A five-year multi-institutional analysis. Pediatrics. 2009;124(2):563-72.
  2. Srivastava R, Berry JG, Hall M, Downey J, O’Gorman M, Dean, M, Barnhart D. Reflux related hospital admissions after fundoplication in children with neurological impairment: Retrospective Cohort Study. BMJ. 2009;339:b4411. PMCID: PMC2779335.
  3. Simon T, Berry JG, Feudtner C, Stone B, Sheng X, Bratton S, Dean JM, Srivastava R. Children with complex chronic conditions in inpatient hospital settings in the U.S. Pediatrics. 2010;126(4):647-655. PMCID: PMC2962571.
  4. Berry JG, Graham R, Roberson D, Graham D, Zhou J, Putney H, O’brien J, Goldmann D. Patient characteristics associated with in-hospital mortality in children following tracheotomy. Arch Dis Child. 2010;95(9):703-710. PMCID: PMC3118570.
  5. Berry JG, Hall D, Cohen A, Kuo D, Agrawal D, Kueser J, Feudtner C, Hall M, Neff J. Hospital utilization and characteristics of patients experiencing recurrent readmissions within children's hospitals. JAMA. 2011;305(7):682-690. PMCID: PMC3118568.
  6. Berry JG, Agrawal R, Kuo DZ, Cohen E, Risko W, Hall M, Casey P, Gordon J, Srivastava R. Characteristics of hospitalizations for patients who use a structured clinical care program for children with medical complexity. J Pediatr. 2011;159(2):284-290. PMCID: PMC3138997.
  7. Berry JG, Poduri A, Bonkowsky JL, Zhou J, Graham DA, Welch C, Putney H, Srivastava R. Trends in resource utilization by children with neurological impairment in the United States inpatient health care system: a repeat cross-sectional study. PLoS Med. 2012;9(1):e1001158. PMCID: PMC3260313.
  8. Cohen E, Berry JG, Camacho X, Anderson G, Wodchis W, Guttmann A. Patterns and costs of health care use of children with medical complexity. Pediatrics. 2012;130(6):e1463-1470.
  9. Berry JG, Hall M, Hall DE, Kuo DZ, Cohen E, Agrawal R, Mandl KD, Clifton H, Neff J. Inpatient growth and resource use in 28 children's hospitals: A longitudinal, multi-institutional study. JAMA Pediatr. 2013;167(2):170-177. PMCID: PMC3663043.
  10. Berry JG, Toomey SL, Zaslavsky AM, Jha AK, Nakamura MM, Klein DJ, Feng JY, Shulman S, Chiang VW, Kaplan W, Hall M, Schuster MA. Pediatric readmission prevalence and variability across hospitals. JAMA. 2013;309(4):372-380. PMCID: PMC3640861.

Publications