Heidi Flori, MD, FAAP
Associate Professor, Pediatrics
Pediatric Intensivist
Weil Institute Associate Director
(415) 497-4731
For over 25 years, Dr. Flori’s primary research focus has been to study the epidemiology, diagnosis, clinical and biological risk factors, management and long-term outcomes of pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (PARDS). The first 15 years of her pediatric critical care clinical and PARDS research career were completed at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland (BCHO), where she developed BCHO’s clinical/translational research program. In 2015, she was recruited to the University of Michigan CS Mott Children's Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to continue newer research collaborations with Dr. Mary Dahmer, and others. Through these early collaborations, she was invited to co-author an R01 on Biomarkers and Genetics of Acute Lung Injury (BALI; HL095410) with Drs. Dahmer and Quasney. BALI was the first, large pediatric critical care ancillary study to a parent randomized controlled trial, the NHLBI funded RESTORE trial of sedation practices in pediatric acute respiratory failure (RESTORE; U01 HL086622). The results yielded from these BALI studies directly informed the team’s current ancillary study, ENSNARE (R01 HL149910) to the PROSpect: Prone and Oscillation Pediatric Clinical Trial (UG3 HL141736-01), again as co-principal investigator with Dr. Dahmer. Dr. Dahmer and Dr. Flori completed the first latent class analysis in PARDS patients (R21HD097387) published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine in December 2021.
Dr. Flori’s research efforts remain centered on further characterizing these latent classes, aka phenotypes, so as to provide predictive enrichment for future research trial design and prognostic enrichment for routine clinical care for these patients with great morbidity and mortality.
Dr. Flori was one of the original members at the first Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigator network in 2002 and has since been on the PALISI Scientific Steering committee for several years and on the PALISI Executive Committee. She has supported many other independent, usually fellow-led, pediatric clinical research efforts over the years as well, including studies in sepsis, ventilator associated pneumonia, noninvasive mechanical ventilation, transport medicine, acupuncture in post op surgical patients and others.
Clinically, Dr. Flori has served as Medical Director for a total of 10 years across 2 PICUs. She enjoys collaborating on quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and improving patient throughput. She has been a participant and chaired many divisional and hospital-based committees. Dr. Flori has also been fortunate to be a co-author of both the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury Consensus Conference and the Pediatric Surviving Sepsis Campaign.