Medical-Rehabilitation Research Center

The Franciscan Children’s Medical-Rehabilitation Research Center is dedicated to advancing evidence-based practices in post-acute hospital care, pediatric rehabilitation, physical activity, fitness, and education, as well as medical and dental care for children with special health needs.

Housed within Franciscan Children’s and led by Chief Medical Director Dr. Jane O’Brien and Dr. Jay Berry, Chief of Complex Care Servies at our sister hospital Boston Children’s, the Medical-Rehabilitation Research Center serves as the hub for evaluating and studying the effectiveness of new interventions and programs. We aim to share our findings with a wide audience, including consumers, professionals, and those involved in pediatric services.

About Our Program

Commitment to Excellence

We prioritize outcome management and research methodologies to assess service effectiveness, ensuring the highest quality of care across all care levels.

Professional Development

Identifying the educational and training needs of students and healthcare professionals is central to our mission. We offer specialized educational programs for our staff to enhance their skills.

Program Goals

Our key goals include evaluating care delivery, conducting clinical outcomes analyses, exploring innovative care methods, and providing training to pediatric medical and rehabilitation students and professionals.

Collaborative Partnerships

The Medical-Rehabilitation Research Center collaborates with local, regional, and national foundations, corporations, universities, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to assess and enhance the quality of care for children and adolescents. We are proud to be a founding member of the Specialized Pediatric Applied Research Collaborative (SPARC), a national consortium of pediatric post-acute facilities with a shared research agenda. Our recent collaborators include:

Bobath Centre, London, UK
Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
Children’s Hospital Association,
Washington, DC
Courage Center, Minneapolis, MN
CRECare, LLC, Newburyport, MA
Department of Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Department of Exercise & Health Sciences, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, UMASS Boston, Boston, MA
Department of Occupational Therapy, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA
Departments of Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, MA
Department of Physical Therapy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Department of Physical Therapy, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
Department of Physical Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, MGH
Institute of Health Professions, Boston, MA
Department of Physical Therapy, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Department of Physical Therapy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
Department of Physical Therapy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Department of Pediatrics and Rehabilitation Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Health and Disability Research Institute, School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA
MA Department of Conservation and Recreation
Nemours Hospital/Alfred I. duPont Institute, Wilmington, Delaware
Queensland Cerebral Palsy and Rehabilitation Research Centre, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia