Committees

Connections Committee

The PCICS Connections Committee facilitates communication, education, and feedback between PCICS and its present and future membership. The Connections Committee is made up of 21 physicians, nurses, and advanced practice providers across five subcommittees with the purpose of outreach in the following formats:

1. Newsletter
2. Podcast
3. Website
4. Social Media
5. Membership, including the Membership Survey

The Connections Committee's goal is to strive to reach present and future PCICS members, as well as the cardiac intensive care community at large, bringing people together, educating, and being a source of information and advocacy.

The newsletter is released four times a year (winter, spring, summer, fall) and features guest editorials as well as updates from PCICS leadership and PCICS committees. It is released online on the PCICS website, and shared via social media (@PCICS2 and #PCICSnews on Twitter). The current Newsletter subcommittee consists of Ivie Esangbedo (Editor-in-Chief), Meghna Patel (Associate Editor), Felina Mille (Associate Editor), and Kriti Puri (Associate Editor).

The PCICS Podcast: The Podcast for Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care is released biweekly, and features interviews with guests and leaders in our field. This highly successful podcast has 5,000-10,000 listeners per month. The current Podcast subcommittee is led by Saidie Rodriguez and Deanna Tzanetos.

Jill Zender and Darren Klugman are subcommittee leads for both the Membership and Website subcommittees.

Connections Committee Co-Chairs

Ivie Esangbedo
Claire Rizk

The goal of the DEI Committee is to elevate and promote diversity and cultural humility and competency within the pediatric cardiac intensive care clinicians around the globe and to elevate and promote health equity for children with heart disease.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee Co-Chairs

Shanelle Clarke
Jean Conner
Lie Tjoeng

The goal of the Education Committee is to develop and implement continuing education programs offered by the Society.

In line with the mission statement of PCICS, the Education Committee is dedicated to the dissemination of current knowledge and the empowerment of the global family of cardiac critical care providers. We are a robust group of clinicians from all the disciplines of cardiac care — nursing, advance practice providers and physicians. Through a series of subcommittees (fourth-year fellowship, APP, translational and policy bank), we collaborate with international committees and other factions of the PCICS organization to create new educational material, refresh existing content, and ensure that these are available globally.

Activities include:

• CICU Nurse Curriculum
• CICU Handbook 2nd Edition
• APP Course

Education Committee Co-Chairs

Shilpa Govardhan
Toni Imprescia

The Finance Committee oversees the financial activities of the Society to promote its fiscal stability and long-term economic health. The Committee provides the Board with oversight of the organization’s budget, financial reporting, financial policies/guidelines, audits, investments, financial relationships, and revenue streams.

Activities include:

• Oversee preparation and maintenance of the financial records of the Society
• Recommend and oversee financial policies
• Oversight of investment accounts
• Budget
  • Annually develop a budget for approval by the Board prior to the start of the new fiscal year
  • Monitor performance against the approved budget
  • Evaluate and/or recommend opportunities to maximize income
  • Cost containment
• Sponsorship and financial relationships
  • Cultivate and maintain financial relationships with industry supporters
  • Institutional membership
  • Annual conference support
  • Podcast sponsorship
  • Multi-year industry support contracts
• Proposed Project Budgets
  • Assist with budget development (including staff hours required) for proposed projects from PCICS committees/SIGs/individual members
  • Approve or deny the budget of the proposed project based on the overall PCICS budget and the number of staff hours required vs. available
• Revenue Streams- Assess and optimize current revenue streams and develop new sources of income for PCICS
• Foundation Steering Subcommittee
  • Develop infrastructure for activation of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Foundation

Finance Committee Co-Chairs

Michael Fundora
David Werho

The International Committee facilitates education, resource-sharing, training, and mentoring for pediatric cardiac ICU colleagues in low- to middle-income countries through an international network.

Activities:

• Curriculum Translation

International Committee Co-Chairs

Bruna Cury
Uri Pollak
Bistra Zheleva

The Program Committee plans and executes PCICS' Annual Meetings as well as oversees the work of the Webinar Subcommittee.

Program Committee Co-Chairs

Ben Sivarajan
Jill Zender

The goal of the QI-S Committee is to promote a wide breadth of quality and safety science through ongoing education, resource development, and novel projects and initiatives.

The QI-S Committee has three active sub-committees, including Education (led by Rambod Amirnovin), Resource and Outreach (led by Marissa Smith-Parrish), and Research and Development (led by Marissa Brunetti).

The Education Committee is completing work developing valuable QI resources that will be made available for members on the PCICS website. These resources will include quality content, curriculum, and roadmaps aimed at helping to formulate, develop, and execute QI projects.

The Research and Development team recently submitted a survey in the March "Call for Surveys" to understand and discern different institutions' quality processes and practices.

The Resource and Outreach team has partnered with the Education team and Amy Florez to develop a Quality Improvement Learning and Thinktank (QILT) session at the PCICS Annual Meeting. Planning meetings are underway for the session, which will highlight novel, quality initiatives at different institutions, with an opportunity for brainstorming, guidance, and mentorship.

Activities:

• QI-S Primer (Crash Course)
• QI Website Resources
• QI Mentorship
• QI-S Project Sharing

Quality Improvement and Safety Committee Co-Chairs

Melina Handley
Melissa Winder
Greg Yurasek

The Research Committee develops, promotes, and recommends PCICS research activities including multi-site research collaboratives, review of abstracts and research surveys, and development and dissemination of white papers. The research committee aims to encourage science within the organization and to foster collaboration that can advance the field. This includes the selection of the many excellent posters at the annual meeting, developing white papers aimed at important issues in pediatric cardiac critical care, and overseeing the PCICS survey process.

Activities:

• White papers
• Scientific Review Committee
• CoRE-PCICS
• Scientific Innovations

Research Committee Co-Chairs

Anna Fisk
Jamie Penk