Miguel L. Knochel, MD, FAAP

Dr. Knochel is a Pediatric Hospitalist working at Primary Children's Hospital in Lehi and Salt Lake City campuses. He is currently an Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Clinical). Dr. Knochel is Board Certified in General Pediatrics, Subspecialty Board Certified in Pediatric Hospital Medicine, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. His nonclinical work focuses on continuing education for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. He is Medical Director of Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) for Intermountain Health, and he is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Continuing Medical Education (AAP COCME).

Dr. Knochel received his BA in Biochemistry summa cum laude from The Colorado College in 1999. He then volunteered full-time for a year in a children's literacy project with AmeriCorps*VISTA. He earned his MD from University of Utah School of Medicine in 2004. In medical school, awards from classmates and faculty included the Paul Wintrobe Memorial Medal, and awards for exemplary patient care, outstanding work in pediatrics, and Gold Humanism in Medicine. He completed pediatric residency at the University of Utah - Primary Children's Hospital in 2007, where he received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the residents, and the Pediatric Practice Award from the faculty. His early research included detecting single molecules, mutating HIV, preventing domestic violence, and describing the prenatal and family health of mothers from Mexico.

After residency Dr. Knochel was a community pediatrician Canyon View Pediatrics in Payson, Utah for 9 years 2007-2016, where he also became Chair of Pediatrics at Mountain View Hospital, served on the Medical Executive Committee, and was part of a neonatal quality review board for a group of nine hospitals in 4 states. In Payson, he helped lead his clinic to achieve recognition as the first NCQA Level II Patient-Centered Medical Home in the county, and he served as a board member for Early Intervention services. During this time, Intermountain Health awarded him twice for Excellence in Healthcare, and the United Angels Foundation named him Doctor of the Year in 2012 for his care of children with special health care needs.

Dr. Knochel was appointed as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Clinical) in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at the University of Utah in 2016, and became Associate Professor in 2022. He was Medical Director of the Primary Children's Unit at Riverton Hospital in 2016 until it closed in 2024 to move to the new hospital campus in Lehi. As part of his work as a Pediatric Hospitalist, Dr. Knochel teaches residents and medical students. He has served on committees of doctors and nurses to guide and continuously improve the quality and safety of healthcare for children throughout the region. Dr. Knochel became the Pediatric Medical Director of the nationally accredited Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) for Intermountain Health in 2019, adding Adult Medical Director of IPCE in 2022. He directs Primary Children's Pediatric Grand Rounds, and is responsible for pediatric and adult continuing education for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists at 33 hospitals in 5 states, with over 100 regularly scheduled series, 20 yearly conferences, representing 160,000 credit hours per year. With the AAP COCME, he helps pediatricians nationwide to use interactive teaching techniques with their learners. He is fluent in Spanish, and is qualified as a Bilingual Provider.

His research is highly collaborative, trying to answer practical clinical questions in the fields of pediatric trauma emergencies; brief resolved unexplained events (BRUE) in infants; and bronchiolitis. In collaboration with emergency physicians and pediatric trauma teams, he helped to launch a Telehealth service at Riverton Hospital that prevented unnecessary transfers of mild trauma patients. This served as a model for the Utah Pediatric Trauma Network (UPTN) that is now used at hospitals throughout Utah and other states. He joined the BRUE Research and Quality Improvement Collaborative to investigate risk factors for higher-risk infants, to learn which tests were helpful or could be omitted, and to discover which serious diagnoses or missed diagnoses were underlying BRUE. The BRUE Collaborative produced multiple publications and a handy risk calculator used in emergency departments and hospitals throughout the country. For bronchiolitis, Dr. Knochel collaborated with Primary Children's Hospital and Intermountain Health as a founding member of the first systemwide pediatric Respiratory Council. This produced the first bronchiolitis inpatient clinical protocol intended for use across all Intermountain hospitals where children are admitted, and resulted in co-authorship of a publication showing safe use of high-flow nasal cannula outside the critical care setting, with reduced unnecessary transfers.