The NEC Society has received an Engagement Award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to support the 2019 NEC Symposium. The NEC Symposium is made possible through a partnership between the NEC Society and the Section of Pediatric Surgery at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and will take place June 2 – 5, 2019 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The NEC Symposium is part of a portfolio of projects that PCORI has funded to help develop a community of patients and other healthcare stakeholders who have the knowledge, skills and partnerships to participate in and advance patient-centered outcomes research and patient-centered comparative effectiveness research.

“The NEC Symposium was selected for PCORI Engagement Award funding for its commitment to improving the capacity for patients and other stakeholders to engage in patient-centered research and its potential to increase the usefulness and trustworthiness of the research PCORI funds,” said Jean Slutsky, PCORI’s Chief Engagement and Dissemination Officer. “We look forward to following the project’s progress and working with the NEC Society to share the results.”

Clinicians, investigators, and patient-family advocates from around the world will participate in the 2019 NEC Symposium. The fundamental goal of the Symposium is to propel the understanding, prevention, and treatment of NEC in medically fragile infants through patient-centered outcomes research and clinical comparative effectiveness research. The 2019 meeting will build off of the foundation set by the groundbreaking 2017 NEC Symposium, which was held in partnership with the University of California at Davis, Division of Neonatology, and also received a PCORI Engagement Award.

The 2019 NEC Symposium will be chaired by Jennifer Canvasser (founder and co-director of the NEC Society), Dr. Samir Gadepalli (NEC Society advisor and pediatric surgeon at the University of Michigan), and Erin Umberger (co-director of the NEC Society), who will work hand in hand with the NEC Society’s scientific advisory council. Erin Umberger shares, “With PCORI’s support, the 2019 NEC Symposium will provide the setting for discovery, collaboration, and sustained partnerships on high impact projects, and will advance patient-centered NEC research to incrementally change the paradigm of care delivered to families of vulnerable infants.”

The NEC Society’s Symposium and the other projects approved for funding by the PCORI Engagement Award Program were selected through a highly competitive review process in which applications were assessed for their ability to meet PCORI’s engagement goals and objectives, as well as program criteria. For more information about PCORI’s funding to support engagement efforts, visit http://www.pcori.org/content/eugene-washington-pcori-engagement-awards/.

PCORI is an independent, nonprofit organization authorized by Congress in 2010. Its mission is to fund research that will provide patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed healthcare decisions. 

Registration for the 2019 NEC Symposium will open in the fall of 2018. Symposium announcements and updates are available at NECsociety.org. Organizations and companies interested in supporting or exhibiting at the 2019 NEC Symposium should email Jennifer@NECsociety.org. For updates, please join the NEC Society’s email list.

For additional information, please email Jennifer@NECsociety.org