Emergency Medicine quality and operations research has two main focuses: the relationship between operational innovations and quality outcomes; and the impact of emergency department interventions on transition of care goals, including the use of machine learning to predict hospital utilization and clinical outcomes. The department has also been a national leader in Covid-19 ED research, contributing to multiple peer-reviewed publications and American College of Emergency Physician (ACEP) Covid-19 guidelines.
The Department is a national leader in Emergency Medicine research with a robust portfolio in areas such as elder abuse, telemedicine, global health, pediatrics, operations, and COVID-19. We are committed to not only conducting systematic research that will lead to improvements in emergency medicine and patient care, but also to educating students, residents, and fellows about research methodology and evidence-based medicine.
Quality and Operations Research
Pediatric Emergency Medicine Research
Our pediatric emergency medicine faculty are involved in cutting-edged research, rigorous multi-institutional studies, multi-discipline collaborative projects with an emphasis on relevant topics that affect our field, community and global network. Examples of areas of our research: COVID-19 in children, Global health and pediatric sepsis, physician burnout, implicit bias and narrative medicine.
Telemedicine
The field of telemedicine has undergone a rapid transformation and seen an exponential increase in use. We have leveraged our clinical expertise in this area to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual care efforts with a goal toward improving patient outcomes and further advancing the role of telemedicine in patient care.
Global Health
We are conducting studies on local engagement with HIV services in southwestern Uganda and northwestern Tanzania. We have also investigated barriers to treatment of pediatric sepsis at Weill Bugando Medical Center in Mwanza, Tanzania. Expanding research capacity in the Weill Bugando Emergency Department is a primary focus of collaboration.
Elder Abuse
Our first-of-its-kind Vulnerable Elder Protection Team (VEPT), assesses, treats, and ensures the safety of elder abuse victims. We are currently exploring the impact of the VEPT program on patient-important outcomes. and continuing explorations of injury patterns and health care utilization among elder abuse victims.