August 2, 2015
Dear Dr. Faraoni,
Congratulations. After reviewing all the grant proposals that were submitted for the SABM-Haemonetics Research Starter Grant Award, we have chosen yours as the one with the most scientific merit and clinical relevance and we would like to offer you the grant award. The award is for $20,000, which would be designated to fund your study entitled “Perioperative Assessment of Coagulation in Neonates and Infants Undergoing Cardiac Surgery”.
The Board of Directors and the members of the SABM Research Committee are excited that this proposal is focused on point of care coagulation testing in neonates and infants since this is one particular area in the field of patient blood management where there is a gap in the evidence.
In order to accept this award we request that you attend the SABM Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida where the award will be presented on September 25, at 4PM. We realize that travel plans may be difficult without much lead time, so please let us know if these dates and times will work for your schedule. We also ask that you register for the meeting which can be done though our website (http://www.sabm.org/index.iphtml).
We welcome you to the Society for Advancement of Blood Management and we look forward to working with you and your team of investigators. We also look forward to seeing you at the 2016 annual meeting to hear you present a brief progress report on the proposed study.
Yours very truly,
Steven M. Frank MD
Chair - The SABM Research Committee
Comments:
This study will address an important cohort of patients who may require blood that is not otherwise generally well studied. Some preliminary data is presented demonstrating the need for such studies in the applicants’ environment. Consideration of the age of the transfused blood is a good inclusion. It is unclear what the requested funding amounts for the hematologist, anesthetist and obstetrician/gynecologist are for, but this accounts for only $853 in total. This startup proposal has, in this reviewer’s opinion, a real potential to change practice and introduce PBM in the applicants’ country. There seems to be considerable information solicited in the consent forms that is superfluous e.g. on page 17, why is it important for this study to know details of education level of the patient, occupation, marital status, sex of children, husband’s age, education or occupation. The consent form should be modified to reflect the information actually required for this study.
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