Dr. Colantuoni works to improve the design and analysis of research studies conducted among neonates, children and adults with critical illness receiving care within the intensive care unit (ICU). Dr. Colantuoni is the lead biostatistician for the Outcomes After Critical Illness and Surgery (OACIS) group at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where the goal is to identify how different baseline characteristics and ICU treatments are associated with patient outcomes in the ICU such as delirium, ICU discharge and mortality. Several statistical challenges in these studies include:  how to model the intensive longitudinal data generated while the patients are in the ICU (daily or twice daily measurements) when often the exposures are time-varying, and the competing risk of mortality both in and out of the ICU, which is especially challenging when the outcome of interest is not a survival event but a continuous or binary outcome. Dr. Colantuoni has an R01 funded by the NIA to evaluate and develop novel statistical methods to evaluate interventions to treat delirium in critically ill adults. Her work with critically ill pediatric and neonate populations has primarily occurred in collaboration with Dr. Aaron Milstone, Professor of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Colantuoni serves as the lead Biostatistician for Dr. Milstone's research group. Recently, the group completed a randomized trial of nasal mupirocin vs. placebo for decolonization of Staphylococcus Aureus in parents of neonates receiving care in the neonatal ICU. Mupirocin reduced transmission of Staphylococcus Aureus from parent to neonate by 50%. Further, the BrightStar collaborative project demonstrated a roughly 40% reduction in the number of blood cultures performed in pediatric ICU patients by adopting a diagnostic stewardship program.