David White, PhD, ACSM-CEP
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
Full BiographyDavid White, PhD, Cardiology, received a 5-year, $736,540 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Dr. White’s study, “Remotely Delivered Cardiac Rehabilitation for Adolescents with Congenital Heart Disease,” will evaluate the effectiveness of a remotely delivered, in-home, supervised cardiac rehabilitation (CR) exercise program delivered to groups of adolescents with congenital heart disease (CHD) by live health coach via group video conferencing technology.
“In-home CR reduces barriers related to patient access for patients/families who may not have the capability or resources to travel to a regional children’s hospital multiple days per week for traditional in-hospital CR. It also reduces the financial burden for hospitals. However, data supporting the effectiveness of in-home CR for youth is limited,” wrote Dr. White. “The use of group video conferencing technology via tablet computer represents a novel and potentially transformational strategy for delivering real-time, live, supervised CR to groups of adolescents with CHD in their homes.”
Dr. White explained that if his team’s remotely delivered, group based approach for pediatric CR is found to be effective for increasing cardiorespiratory fitness, cardiac function, and other markers of physical and psychosocial health, the implementation and dissemination of this approach across multiple centers has the potential to improve a patient’s health, wellbeing, and resistance to physiologic stressors, reduce severity of illness and co-morbidities, and potentially lengthen life for children and adolescents with CHD.
Joseph Donnelly Jr., E.d.D, with the University of Kansas Medical Center will act as Dr. White’s primary mentor for this project. Stephen Paridon, MD (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) and John Spertus, MD (University of Missouri – Kansas City), and Girish Shirali, MBBS (Children’s Mercy Kansas City) will act as co-mentors.