View current achievements and presentations below featuring the research, staff and advancements of the Ray Pediatric Health Systems Research Group at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s Richard King Mellon Institute for Pediatric Research. Please check back often for continued updates.
Achievements
2020
Kristin Ray, MD, MS, and collaborators received R01 funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for a project titled “Understanding Use of Direct-to-consumer Telemedicine for Pediatric Acute Respiratory Infections”, also known as the CACTUS Study (Children and Colds Telemedicine Use Study).
Gina Sequeira, MD, MS, completed her adolescent fellowship training and will start a faculty position at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she successfully competed for a K12 award to improve care for transgender youth.
Rhea Verma received a University of Pittsburgh Brackenridge Fellowship from Pitt Honors College.
Deepika Yeramosu was accepted to pursue graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University.
Kristin Ray, MD, MS, became director of the General Academic Pediatrics research fellowship program.
2019
James Bohnhoff, MD, Katherine Gitz, MD, and Jacqueline Rankine, MD, MS, completed their pediatric residencies.
Dr. Gitz was recognized for Best Resident Poster at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Resident Research Day.
2018
Kristin Ray, MD, MS, was appointed to a three-year term on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Pediatric Workforce. Dr. Ray also received the Nemours Child Health Services Research Award during at the 2018 Child Health Services Research Interest Group meeting at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Katherine Gitz, MD, was awarded an American Academy of Pediatrics CATCH grant to fund research to examine parent perspectives on ways to improve access at the primary care medical home.
Jacquelin Rankine, MD, MS, received an American Pediatric Association Resident Investigator Award to fund qualitative work to understand how pediatricians and school nurses can improve partnerships.
Presentations
2019
Multiple presentations at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, Washington, D.C. Topics covered: understanding how pediatric health systems can better serve transgender youth; research validating methods to identify telemedicine encounters in claims data; and our work leading a quality-improvement initiative to enhance dental care within primary care practices.
Justin Yu, MD, MS, delivered “Family Experiences of Care Coordination Prior to Treatment at a Complex Care Center,” a poster presentation, at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting, Baltimore.
Gina Sequeira, MD, MS, delivered “Transgender Youth’s Disclosure of Gender Identity to Providers Outside of Specialized Gender Centers,” at the poster symposium, Annual Meeting of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, Washington, D.C.
2018
At the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in Toronto, Kristin Ray, MD, MS, presented “How do Pediatric Patients use Direct-to-consumer Telemedicine?” and “Trends in Visits to Primary Care Physicians by Children, 2008-2015,” both platform presentations. James Bohnhoff, MD, presented on “Unscheduled Referrals and Unattended Visits after Subspecialty Referral in a Large Pediatric Primary Care Network,” a poster presentation.
UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Grand Rounds presentation by Dr. Ray, entitled, “Integrating Telemedicine into Pediatric Health Care Delivery Systems.”
2017
Kristin Ray, MD, MS, presented “Electronic Referrals: Improving Patient Access and Pediatrician Satisfaction,” a platform presentation at the Child Health Services Interest Group Meeting, AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, New Orleans.
Under the leadership of 
