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Christopher M. Horvat, MD, MHA

  • Assistant Professor of Critical Care Medicine and Pediatrics
  • Pediatrics Director, Condition A/C Medical Emergency Response Teams
  • Director, Health Informatics for Clinical Effectiveness, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

Dr. Horvat is board-certified in Pediatrics, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and Clinical Informatics. He earned a BS in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006, graduating with highest honors and distinction. He completed medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010, during which time he was elected into Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. Dr. Horvat completed a residency in General Pediatrics at the University of Washington Affiliated Hospitals/Seattle Children's Hospital, where he served as Associated Chief Resident and received the Seattle Children's Resident Peer-Teacher Award. He completed a fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh where he served as Chief Fellow. He went on to complete a National Institutes of Health T-32 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Pediatric Neurointensive Care at the University of Pittsburgh Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in 2017. In 2017 he also earned a Master’s Degree in Health Administration (MHA) from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy and Management and was inducted into Delta Omega national public health honor society. Dr. Horvat's academic interests focus on the National Academy of Medicine's Learning Health System concept. He is currently funded by a K23 career development award (1K23HD099331-01A1) titled "A Learning Health System Approach to Precision Sedation and Analgesia in Critically Ill Children" from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Inhis current work, Dr. Horvat aims to utilize a combination of electronic health record-derived datasets, pharmaco kinetic models and pharmacogenomic insights to develop advanced clinical decision support tools to help refine the use of potent sedatives and analgesic medications in the pediatric intensive care unit. He also serves a number of other roles in clinical informatics, including leading the development of informatics-integrated multidisciplinary workflows for detecting and treating pediatric sepsis, spearheading the creation of artificial intelligence tools for predicting inpatient pediatric deterioration events, and helping to deploy randomized, embedded, multifactorial, adaptive, platform (REMAP) trials across the UPMC system. He enjoys spending his free time with his wife and two sons. He is an avid outdoor enthusiast and relishes any opportunity to retreat to backcountry or alpine environments. When not able to escape to the woods, he enjoys woodworking and can be found with his miter saw in his garage.

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

  • American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010–Present 
  • American Medical Association, 2010–Present
  • Society of Critical Care Medicine, 2013–Present 

Education & Training

  • BS, Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006
  • MD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010
  • MHA, University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, 2017
  • Residency in General Pediatrics, University of Washington Affiliated Hospitals, 2010-2013
  • Fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, 2013-2016
  • T-32 Fellowship in Pediatric Neurocritical Care, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, 2015-2017

Selected Publications

Ramgopal S, Horvat CM, Yanamala N, Alpern L. Supervised Learning Models for Serious Bacterial Infections in Infants. Pediatrics. Accepted. 

Wolf MS, Rakkar J, Horvat CM, Simon DW, Kochaenk PM, Clermont G, Clark RSB.  Assessment of Dynamic Intracranial Compliance in Children with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: Proof-of-Concept.  Neurocritical Care. Accepted. 

Landis WP, Morga RW, Reeder RW, Graham K, Siems A, Diddle JW, Pollack MM, Maa R, Fernandez RP, Yates AR, Tilfords B, Ahmed T, Meert KL, Schneiter C, Bishop R, Mourani PM, Naim MY, Friess S, Burns C, Manga A, Franzon D, Tabbutt S, McQuillen PS, Horvat CM, Bochkoris M, Carcillo JA, Huard L, Federman M, Sapru A, Viteri S, Hehir DA, Notterman DA, Holubkov R, Dean JM, Nadjarni VM, Berg RA, Wolfe HA, Sutton RM and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network (CPCCRN) Investigators, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute ICU-RESUScitation Project Investigators.  Resuscitation. Accepted. 

Alcamo AM, Clark RSB, Au AK, Kantawala S, Yablonsky EJ, Sindhi R, Mazariegos GV, Aneja RK, Horvat CM.  Factors Associated with Neurobehavioral Complications in Pediatric Abdominal Organ Transplant Recipients Identified using Composite Definitions.  Pediatr Crit Care Med J Soc Crit Care Med World Fed Pediatr Intensive Crit Care Soc.  Accepted. 

Ramgopal S, Dezfulian C, Hickey RW, Au AK, Venkataraman S, Clark RSB, Horvat CM. Early Hyperoxemia and Outcome Among Critically Ill Children. Pediatr Crit Care Med J Soc Crit Care Med World Fed Pediatr Intensive Crit Care Soc. 2019 Dec 10; PMID: 31821205 

Ramgopal S, Dezfulian C, Hickey RW, Au AK, Venkataraman S, Clark RSB, Horvat CM. Association of Severe Hyperoxemia Events and Mortality Among Patients Admitted to a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Aug 2;2(8):e199812. PMID: 31433484 

Horvat CM*, Hagos FT*, Au AK, Conley YP, Li L, Poloyac SM, Kochanek PM, Clark RSB, Empey PE. Factors Contributing to Fentanyl Pharmacokinetic Variability Among Diagnostically Diverse Critically Ill Children. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2019 Dec;58(12):1567–1576. PMID: 31168770 (*Equal Authorship) 

Horvat CM, Ogoe H, Kantawala S, Au AK, Fink EL, Yablonsky E, Kochanek PM, Suresh S, Clark RSB. Development and Performance of Electronic Pediatric Risk of Mortality and Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction-2 Automated Acuity Scores. Pediatr Crit Care Med J Soc Crit Care Med World Fed Pediatr Intensive Crit Care Soc. 2019 Aug;20(8):e372–e379. PMID: 31397827 

Horvat CM, Bell J, Kantawala S, Au AK, Clark RSB, Carcillo JA. C-Reactive Protein and Ferritin Are Associated With Organ Dysfunction and Mortality in Hospitalized Children. Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2019 Jun;58(7):752–760. PMID: 30931590 

Horvat CM, Martin B, Wu L, Fabio A, Empey PE, Hagos F, Bigelow S, Kantawala S, Au AK, Kochanek PM, Clark RSB. Opioid e-prescribing trends at discharge in a large pediatric health system. J Opioid Manag. 2019 Apr;15(2):119–127. PMID: 31343713 

Full Publication List via NIH PubMed »

Research Grants

Developing a Precision Approach to Opioid Administration in Critically Ill Children, 2018, UPMC Children’s Hospital Trust Young Investigator Award, $50,000

Pediatric ICU Quantitative EEG for Sleep and Sedation, 2018, University of Pittsburgh Innovation Challenge Grant, $50,000

A Learning Health System Approach to Precision Sedation and Analgesia among Critically Ill Children, 2019, NICHD LRP

R01 HL131544-04, The ICU Resuscitation Project (Improving Outcomes after Pediatric Cardiac Arrest), 2019, NHLBI

R21 NS115174-01, Innovative Method for Real-time Assessment of Intracranial Compliance, 2020, NINDS

1K23HD098328-01A1, A Learning Healthy System Approach to Precision Sedation and Analgesia in Critically Ill Children, 2020, NICHD