Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt staff gathered recently to celebrate the hospital’s performance in the recent U.S. News & World Report ranking of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals.

What do 16,000 Band-Aids, 72 bottles of hand gel, 36 flat sheets, 30 trashcans, two wheelchairs, one crash cart and a 140-foot by 40-foot tent signal?

Adam Esbenshade, M.D., MSCI, assistant professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, has been awarded a $50,000 Hyundai Hope on Wheels Impact Award. Esbenshade plans to use data to create a risk prediction model to predict blood stream infections in pediatric cancer patients.

Past research has proven that palliative care — specialized medical care focused on pain and symptom management as well as psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life — benefits patients with malignant diseases such as aggressive cancers. Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) health care providers are now studying whether palliative care can also benefit those with advanced liver disease, a diagnosis that precedes either a life-saving liver transplant or death.