Rush University Children’s Hospital, Associate Professor

Research Interests

I am a neonatologist and have conducted translational and clinical research and implemented a NEC quality improvement program in our NICU. The translational research has 1) evaluated infant gut microbiota and 2) human milk oligosaccharides (with Dr. Bode). The clinical research has centered on human milk and donor milk outcomes, specifically related to risk reduction for NEC and costs of healthcare. The QI program started in 2009 after we were experienced an increase in our baseline rate of NEC from 6% in 2003-6 to 12% in 2007-9. After implementation of these interventions using PDSA cycles, we have gradually reduced our rate from 5% in 2010-12 to under 2% since 2013. We published our experience from the first 2 years of this initiative in 2014.

Current Projects

Retrospective clinical research on donor milk and impact on NEC and healthcare costs.

Recent Publications

Johnson TJ, Patel AL, Bigger HR, Engstrom JL, Meier PP. Cost Savings of Human Milk as a Strategy to Reduce the Incidence of Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Very Low Birth Weight Infants. Neonatology 2015;107(4):271-6. PMCID: PMC4458214

Namachivayam K, Coffing H, Sankaranarayanan N, Jin Y, MohanKumar K, Frost B, Blanco C, Patel A, Meier P, Garzon S, Desai U, Maheshwari A. Transforming Growth Factor-β2 is sequestered in Preterm Human Milk by Chondroitin Sulfate Proteoglycans. American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology 2015;309(3):G171-80.

Patel AL, Mutlu EA, Sun Y, Koenig L, Green S, Jakubowicz A, Mryan J, Engen P, Fogg L, Chen AL, Pombar X, Meier PP, Keshavarzian A. Longitudinal Survey of Microbiota in Hospitalized Preterm Very Low Birth Weight Infants. JPGN 2016; 62(2):292-303. PMCID: PMC4724288