Urgent Matters

Dr. Ayesha Khan, MD MPH is a board certified emergency medicine physician in Stanford, California. She is currently licensed to practice medicine in California. She is affiliated with Stanford Health Care and is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr. Khan has worked in international health education and development in Cambodia, Haiti, India, Lesotho, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe.    For more information on her study done at Stanford (supported by a USAID grant): http://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2016/07/27/emermed-2015-205430.abstract

Dr. Han is an associate professor with the Department of Emergency Medicine at VanderbiltUniversity. HecompletedhisemergencymedicineresidencyattheUniversityof Cincinnati and also served as chief resident. He completed a research fellowship and obtained a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology. In addition to his clinical responsibilities in the emergency department, Dr. Han has been very active in patient oriented research.  Currently, Dr. Han is funded by a National Institute on Aging K23 award which will validate several brief delirium assessments for the emergency department setting and investigate how delirium in the emergency department affects long-term outcomes. He also serves on several national committees. He serves as the co-chair of the Emergency Medicine Delirium Working Group, and is an active member of the American Delirium Society Research Committee and the Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine.   For more information visit: http://www.icudelirium.org/group/ourteam.html

Dr. Toby Litovitz discusses her work with a new web-based app she and her team have developed at the National Capitol Poison Center called webPoisonControl. Dr. Litovitz is a medical toxicologist and emergency physician. She founded the National Capital Poison Center in 1980 and has served as its Executive and Medical Director since that time. She is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University and a Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at The George Washington University.    For more: https://triage.webpoisoncontrol.org  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27321939

Dr. Motov will be discussing his work on developing new ways to treat patients in the emergency department that reduce our reliance on potentially addictive and dangerous opioid medications. Dr. Motov is an attending physician at Maimonides Medical Center and assistant professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. For more information, feel free to visit his website at www.painfree-ed.com.     

Dr. Neal Sikka discusses his work in telehealth. Dr. Sikka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and a Board Certified Emergency Physician at The George Washington University Hospital. He is the Director of the Innovative Practice Section at the GW Medical Faculty Associates. He oversees the GW MFA Telemedicine Communication Center, is the Emergency Department Information System Physician Application Manager, and is an active member of the GW mHealth Collaborative. 

Dr. Benjamin Lawner discusses his efforts to address public health through EMS and emergency medicine, specifically through the framework and implementation of "Sober Centers." Dr. Lawner is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland. He has completed fellowships in both faculty development and pre-hospital care. He is currently the Deputy EMS Medical Director for Baltimore Country Fire Department, and provides medical oversight for regional pre-hospital education programs. 

Dr. Amirshahi is an emergency medicine physician at MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC). In addition to her current practice at MWHC, Dr. Amirshahi has significant experience as a registered pharmacist, having practiced pharmacy in both the inpatient and outpatient settings for more than a decade. Her research, on topics such as prescription drug abuse, medication reconciliation, patient adherence, and drug shortages, has been published in peer-reviewed journals. She serves as a reviewer for several journals, including Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Academic Emergency Medicine and the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Shulman is the Senior Chief Innovation Engineer with Atrius Health. Today she discusses the in's and out's of her Home Healthcare Delivery program! 

Dr. Biese - Associate Professor, UNC Department of Emergency Medicine ; Vice-Chair of Academic Affairs ; Clinical Associate of Professor of Internal Medicine, Division Geriatrics; Co-Director, Division of Geriatric Emergency Medicine Dr. Hwang - Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine,   Mount Sinai Health System CME resources recommended by our speakers: http://geri-em.com  https://www.ena.org/education/education/GENE/Pages/default.aspx      

Today's podcast discusses the notion of quality based care in the emergency department. Speaking with us is Dominic J. Bagnoli, Jr., MD, FACEP, FAAEM. Dr. Bagnoli serves as chief executive officer of US Acute Care Solutions (USACS), overseeing the strategic direction the company.He founded Emergency Medicine Physicians (EMP) in 1992 and led the company to become one of the largest, fastest-growing, physician-owned emergency medicine organizations in the United States.

Today's podcast discusses the implementation of co-management in the emergency department. Speaking with us is the Associate Chairman and Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at Einstein Medical Center, Dr. Jack Kelly. 

Today's topic brings to light the importance of palliative care in the emergency department. Speaking with us is CEP America's Vice President Dr. Denise Brown. Dr. Brown's work focuses on how palliative care, on a multi-disciplinary front,  can lead to improved quality of life for patients throughout the healthcare continuum.   The challenge is to get everyone who provides palliative care on the same page, and multi-disciplinary teams are already starting to connect with patients in order to facilitate palliative care. - See more at: http://www.cepamerica.com/news-resources/perspectives-on-the-acute-care-continuum/october-2012/departments-begin-palling-around-on-palliative-car#sthash.g5wvZQaC.dpuf

Today’s topic brings together a novel approach of linking emergency medical service teams with a state health information exchange. Speaking with us today is Richard Lewis, the EMS bureau chief of the Denver-area South Metro Fire Rescue Authority.  Rick teamed up with Emergency Physician, Dr. Mark Pranther, to create what is essentially described as “an urgent care clinic on wheels.”

The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano created Code STEMI, an interprofessional team to expedite treatment to patients presenting with a STEMI, a type of heart attack, and improve door to balloon time. The Code STEMI team approach aims to provide continuity of care from arrival to discharge. Two members of the Baylor team, Kerstin Duncan, the Clinical Nurse Manager of the Emergency Department and Non-Invasive Nursing and Kim Nguyen, the Director of Nursing, discuss the results of the Code STEMI team. Dr. Jesse Pines is the Director of the George Washington University Office for Clinical Practice Innovation and a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy. Visit our website for more information about Urgent Matters.

Congratulations to winners of the 2015 Emergency Care Innovation of the Year Award, the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center! Their Mobile Health Paramedic program focuses on patient needs in the community and works to keep patients in their home, rather than at unnecessary ED or clinic visits. Dr. David Schoenwetter of Geisinger discusses the features of this program, as well as the successes they've seen thus far. Dr. Jesse Pines is the Director of the George Washington Univeristy Office for Clinical Practice Innovation and a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy. Visit our website for more information about Urgent Matters.

With the limited number of toxicologists currently practicing in the United States, innovation is necessary to spread their knowledge to the greatest number of patients. The proliferation of telemedicine and the public availability of Google Glass spurred an innovative teletoxicology study to determine the acceptability and feasibility of using Google Glass at the bedside in the emergency department for toxicology consults. Dr. Peter Chai, an Emergency Medicine physician and Medical Toxicology Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, joins us to discuss the findings and the implications for medical consults. Dr. Jesse Pines is the Director of the George Washington University Office for Clinical Practice Innovation and Urgent Matters and is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy. Visit our website for more information about Urgent Matters.

The potentially devestating consequences of adverse cardiac events translate to many patients who are seen urgently in the emergency department during an episode of chest pain. A recent study investigated the short-term risk of an adverse cardiac event for patients presenting in the ED with chest pain. The results showed that for patients with a negative workup (normal blood work, good vital signs, normal EKG), adverse cardiac events were rare, suggesting that inpatient admission may not be the most beneficial for these patients. Dr. Michael Weinstock, the Emergency Department Chairman and Director of Medical Education at Mt. Carmel St. Ann's and a Professor of Emergency Medicine, Adjunct, at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, discusses this study and its implications for cardiac patients in the ED. Dr. Jesse Pines is the Director of the George Washington University Office for Clinical Practice Innovation and Urgent Matters and is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy. Visit our webs

David Gillinson, Chief Data Scientist at StaffSked, talks to Dr. Jesse Pines, the Director of Urgent Matters and a Professor of Health Policy and Emergency Medicine at The George Washington University. StaffSked is trying to utilize new software and techniques for optimizing the various levels of staffing in emergency departments. ED utilization is inconsistent, so overstaffing will be costly for the hospital, while understaffing could be a disaster for patient care. By utilizing modeling software and other engineering theories, StaffSked is able to reduce a hospital's staffing costs while still making sure they are adequately prepared to handle the patient load.    For more information, visit www.StaffSked.com    Urgent Matters is housed in The George Washington University Office for Clinical Practice Innovation. Our goal is to promote new innovations in the delivery of emergency care across the spectrum of providers, administrators, and policymakers. To subscribe to Urgent Matters free newsletters and webin

In the United States, everyone knows that if you call 911, someone will come help you. It's a great system, but anyone who has worked in it knows that not everyone who calls needs the level of emergency care it was intended for. So what should be done with patients who many would label as "abusing" the system?    The city of Houston has taken a novel approach to finding an alternative means of handling these patients so that patients receive the care they need and expensive resources are conserved. It's called ETHAN or Emergency TeleHealth And Navigation. With this, EMTs responding to a 911 call, are able to connect less acute patients with an Emergency Medicine physician via video over the tablets they already carry. The physician then confirms that the patient would be better served with a next-day appointment somewhere other than the hospital's ED, and is able to arrange everything right then. This saves EMS from needing to transport the patient, it saves the ED from needing to treat the patient, and it co

Patients presenting in the emergency department with mental health issues can wait extremely long times for a psychiatric consult due to a lack of psychiatrists and overwhelming demand at some hospitals. Hospitals throughout North Carolina have teamed up with East Carolina University, to implement a telepsychiatry program whereby patients are seen remotely in the emergency department by available psychiatrists throughout the community.    The Director of the North Carolina Statewide Telepsychiatry Program (NC-STEP) is Dr. Sy Saeed, who also serves as a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. Interviewing him is Dr. Jesse Pines, a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy, and Director of the Office for Clinical Practice Innovation at The George Washington University.    Urgent Matters is a platform for disseminating new ideas and strategies for the delivery of emergency medical care. In addition to our