Research and Quality Improvement

Asthma

COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Council

Sepsis

 

Research Team

The Section of Emergency Medicine houses eight research staff, including a full-time research manager, a full-time research coordinator, a part-time biostatistician, and 5 full-time research assistants. The ED research office also houses research supplies, including protocols, manuals of operation, and consent forms. The ED research manager oversees the research infrastructure that is vital to the execution of all clinical research studies in the ED. 

 

Research Group Mentorship

 

The section conducts bi-monthly research meetings to present new protocols for review, present data from existing projects, and enhance the operational effectiveness of the research team.

The Emergency Medicine Scientist Training And Intensive Mentorship (EM-STIM) Program is a unique, monthly mentorship process linking investigators from General and Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia, and Trauma Surgery. Faculty members from our section are active in EM-STIM.

 

Elevate Fund

Section members raise funds for Children's Hospital each year in the annual Courage Classic bicycle ride. The Section's team, Level One Cycling, raises enough funds each year that a portion is earmarked for the Section's use. Much of this funding goes into an intramural grant program run by the Section: the Elevate Fund. Follow Level One Cycling on Facebook.

 

Our faculty is heavily engaged in QI at the local and national level. Faculty participate in multiple projects annually with focus on High-Value Care, Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety.Section QI teams are multidisciplinary, and include nursing leaders and primary care and subspecialist colleagues.

Others aim to improve emergency department care for conditions including appendicitis, asthma, fever, fractures, gastroenteritis, headaches, pneumonia, sexually transmitted infections, and trauma. Our QI team leads a program to improve care for patients with bronchiolitis by aligning patient care with the best available evidence, reducing unnecessary variation in care, and helping to ensure that patients get the right care at the right time in the right setting. The QI team is also engaged in a multidisciplinary HIV screening program.

Other projects cut across conditions and include improvement of patient flow and discharge processes.

Finally, PEM faculty are prominently involved in Clinical Pathways, with several faculty currently helping to develop COVID-19-related clinical guidance. Through these widespread academic activities, CHCO hospitalists have had robust presence at local and national QI meetings, numerous peer-reviewed QI abstracts and manuscripts, and successful applications for grant funding through the School of Medicine’s Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety small grants program.

Many of our PEM faculty provide individual mentorship to faculty and learners who are interested in quality and safety, or who would like to initiate a QI project. Additional training programs are available to all levels of learners and faculty on the Anschutz Medical Campus through The Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency (IHQSE) program.