Urgent Matters

Making Up For Lost Time: How Hospitals are Coping with the COVID Surgical Backlog and Winning

Dr. Erin Kane interviews patient flow experts Dr. Eugene Litvak, Dr. Peter Viccellio, and Hallie Kreul on the topic of the post-COVID surgical backlog and inpatient capacity. Tune in to hear how some hospitals have leveraged surgical smoothing to achieve the impossible dream: increased surgical bandwidth, abundant revenues, and timely care for ER patients. Dr. Litvak and colleagues recently published on this topic in the Annals of Surgery: https://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/Abstract/9000/How_Hospitals_can_Save_Lives_and_Themselves_.93645.aspx Image: Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

A Discussion on Concussions with Dr. David Levine and Dr. Will Denq, sponsored by BrainScope

Dr. Meltzer discusses concussion assessment with Dr. David Levine and Dr. Will Denq. Dr. Levine is a practicing Emergency Medicine Physician and Regional Medical Director who also works directly with many companies across the county, focusing on utilizing technology to aid and improve the daily operations of clinical teams. Dr. Denq is clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at University of Arizona . Dr. Denq (pronounced Den) specializes in sports medicine. He also is an active blogger and has created an entire video series on EM ortho splinting on ALiEM. He is active in event medicine, including for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard teams. Sponsored by BrainScope: a medical neurotechnology company that is improving brain health by providing objective, diagnostic insights that enable better patient care. The company’s BrainScope® device is the only FDA-cleared, portable, EEG-based platform that empowers physicians to quickly make accurate mild traumatic brain injury assessments. https://www.brainscope.com/

A Discussion on COVID-19 Health Policy with Dr. Dowling and Dr. Terry

Marisa Dowling, MD, MPP is the GW Health Policy Fellow for the Class of 2021. Dr. Dowling graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in Human Biology. She then attended Duke University for medical school and earned a Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Dowling completed residency training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Aisha T. Terry, MD, MPH, FACEP is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, DC. There, she serves as Co-Director of the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Health Policy Fellowship, which trains physicians to be future public health and health policy leaders. She also serves as a Learning Community Leader, Clinical Public Health Mentor, Professional Development Mentor, and Clinical Skills and Reasoning Instructor in the School of Medicine. Dr. Terry has always been very active in the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and was most recently elected to the ACEP Board of Directors. MK Dowling, AT Terry, NL Kirilichin, JS Lee, JC Blanchard. United States Congressional COVID-19 Legislation: Recent Laws and Future Topics. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine 21 (5), 1037. Link: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/748005vg

COVID-19 Point of Care Ultrasound with Dr. Blaivas and Dr. Ogle

Dr. Meltzer discusses POCUS in the Era of COVID-19 with Dr. Kathleen Ogle and Dr. Mike Blaivas including: • Characteristic cardiac and lung findings • The role of serial exams • The role of POCUS in tracking disease progression Dr. Kat Ogle is an Assistant Professor at the George Washington University. She is engaged in medical student, resident and fellow education. Her roles include Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship Director, Executive Chair of the Clinical Competency Committee for the residency, leading the Medical Education and Leadership Scholarly Concentration as well as Clinician as a Medical Educator course. Dr. Michael Blaivas, Chief Medical Officer, EchoNous, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, a recognized pioneer in emergency medicine, and has been involved with point-of-care ultrasound since 1993. He is currently an Affiliate Professor of Medicine, University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

A Discussion on COVID-19 with Dr. Solomon from NIH

Dr. Solomon is the Clinical Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. He and Dr. Meltzer discuss what insights genomics research might be able tell us about COVID-19.