Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, University of Southern California (USC), Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles

Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation (CHIME)

A multi-center effort with the following steering committee:

Chair: George Lister, MD (Yale University); Marian Willinger, Ph.D. (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda); Michael Corwin, MD (Boston University); David Crowell, Ph.D. (University of Hawaii, Honolulu); Toke Hoppenbrouwers, Ph.D. (University of Southern California) ; Carl Hunt MD (National Center of Sleep Disorders Research, NIH, Bethesda); Michael Neuman MD, Ph.D. (University of Memphis); Debra Weese- Mayer MD, Rush Presbyterian Medical Center, Chicago)


Non-Steering Committee members:

Lee Brooks MD; Sally Davidson Ward MD; David Hufford MD; Thomas Keens MD; Richard Martin MD; Rangasamy Ramanathan MD; Jean Silvestri MD; Larry Tinsley MD.


CHIME Coordinators and Staff:

Susan Shafer RN; Paula Palmer Ph.D.; Daisy Bolduc Bautista, RT, MHP; Roberta Bell RN; Linda Fiori MS; Mary Ann Oess RN; Sheila Smok-Pearsall RN; Linda Kapuniai PsyD.; Rebecca Mendenhall MS; Sharon Bak MPH; Mark Peucker MS.


In 1991, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) initiated the CHIME study with the following major objectives:

  • determining the capability of more sophisticated home monitors in identifying clinically relevant episodes of apnea, bradycardia and other components of cardiorespiratory control
  • establishing the incidence of significant clinical events in healthy term infants, babies born prematurely, SIDS siblings and infants who had experienced an apparent life-threatening event
  • creation of an extensive data base on the development of cardio-respiratory physiology in normal and at risk infants

Since the inception of CHIME, more than 1000 babies have been monitored at home. The findings thus far have been reported in the publications listed under 'publications'. The most important recent study appeared in the journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of April, 2001 (see #8 under 'publications').