Janet Brooks & Mark MacKay Celebrated as 2016 Healthcare Heroes

Utah Business Magazine recently recognized two of Primary Children’s staff as Healthcare Heroes in their annual publication about the healthcare industry. Healthcare Heroes acknowledges people who provide excellence and innovation within the healthcare system and contribute to continuously improving the standard of care in Utah.

Janet Brooks, Manager of Child Advocacy & Safety, was recognized in the category of Community Outreach for her work in childhood injury prevention, car seat safety, and the Hold On To Dear Life® campaign. Mark MacKay, PharmD, who recently retired as a Pharmacy Manager, was recognized in the category of Lifetime Achievement for his groundbreaking work in reducing parenteral nutrition (PN) errors in pediatric patients.

“Janet and Mark are two of the most outstanding colleagues I’ve had the chance to work with in all my years here at Primary Children’s,” says Katy Welkie, Primary Children’s CEO. “Janet has been instrumental in reducing infant fatalities in many areas, and Mark has singlehandedly changed the landscape of PN across the nation for pediatrics.”

Janet Brooks - Community Outreach

If you’ve lived in Utah long enough, or watched much television over the past 25 years, you’re familiar with the five notes of music that immediately connect you to Primary Children’s Hospital’s Hold On To Dear Life® child safety campaign. Seat belt safety, car seat safety, helmet safety, water safety and various other injury prevention initiatives in Utah can be largely attributed to one person: Janet Brooks. Her tireless work, vision and creativity to promote Hold On To Dear Life® has saved untold lives and improved safety for every Utah child.

For the past 25 years, the Hold On To Dear Life® campaign has shared safety messages and prevention resources in Utah and the Intermountain West. Programs developed by Janet have also been adopted nationally and internationally. Her work to develop programs, training, and collaborations that ensure we lower the injury rates of children in Utah and keep your children out of the hospital.

Data indicates a nearly 60 percent injury death rate reduction during the past 25 years for children in Utah. While many factors contribute to this reduction, it’s safe to say Janet’s played an important role in this statistic.

While every initiative has been important, the most notable include the creation of Utah’s first permanent Car Seat Inspection Station at the hospital, Spot the Tot, and the years and energy spent to help get the “booster seat” law passed in 2008. Countless lives have been saved through these efforts.

But Janet hasn’t stopped there. She’s been integrally involved in changing the child safety landscape in Utah and beyond:

• Since the inception of the Hold On To Dear Life® campaign, seat belt use in Utah has increased from 18 percent to 87.2 percent.
• The Hold On To Dear Life® Child Safety Seat Inspection Station was recognized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as one of six model inspection stations in the United States.
• In 2003, the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions completed a case study about the Hold On To Dear Life® campaign. The study was published as a model child advocacy media and action campaign.
• Since 1988, there has been a 60 percent decrease in the unintentional injury rate among children 19 years and younger. This data comes from Safe Kids Worldwide, of which Hold On To Dear Life® has been a national and statewide partner for more than 25 years.

Mark MacKay - Lifetime Achievement

Mark MacKay began his career as a pharmacy intern at Primary Children’s Hospital in 1975. After graduating from the University of Utah with a degree in Pharmacy, he continued his career with Primary Children’s Hospital as a pharmacist from 1978 through 2016. Throughout his career of more than 40 years, Mark provided care to countless children and mentored pharmacy students, residents, and pharmacists, dietitians, and other healthcare providers. While more than 40 years of service at a children’s hospital is laudable, it is Mark’s pioneering efforts in moving pharmacists to the bedside, as well as his significant work on parenteral nutrition, that has national and international implications.

Parenteral nutrition is the feeding of a patient intravenously, bypassing the gastrointestinal tract due to medical necessity. Some newborns and children would simply not survive without this treatment. However, it is incredibly complex to know what to order, how to order, how to prepare (with over 22 sterile ingredients) and how to administer this treatment.

The Institute of Safe Medication Practices considers parenteral nutrition a high-alert medication because of its complex, high-risk nature where even small errors can cause significant harmful effects. In addition, the constant growth of children requires frequent adjustments and thoughtful monitoring. The potential risk for injury is amplified in children due to the numerous manipulations needed.

Mark also pioneered an automated electronic ordering and compounding system. It allows prescribers to seamlessly enter parenteral nutrition criteria with the assurance that a notification will prevent a prescriber from prescribing a potentially dangerous solution. His work saved lives, even up to his last day before retirement, and will continue to do so.

Due to the tireless work of Mark, Primary Children’s Hospital has been an international leader in pediatric parenteral nutrition.

As a result of his many contributions to healthcare and the relationships he built, Mark has been recognized dozens of times throughout his career. Alongside his colleagues, he was awarded the Baxter Healthcare Corporation’s Leadership Excellence Award in Pharmacy in 2014 for his success in minimizing parenteral nutrition errors. This highly competitive award recognizes outstanding leadership excellence that improves pharmacy outcomes in daily practice.