The Department of Emergency Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has several research cores which are integral focuses of our Division of Research. They include, Acute Care, Analytics, Clinical Trials, Health Equity, Public Health, READINESS Consortium, and Toxicology
Acute Care Policy Research Core
The Acute Care Policy Research (ACPR) team, led by Brendan Carr, MD, is home to a dynamic interdisciplinary mix of clinical medicine, health care policy, computer science, epidemiology, sociology, geography, and pre- and postdoctoral researchers who work together to explore the intersection of care delivery and population health. To date, the ACPR team has primarily focused on using the acute care system as a window into population health. The core work focuses on understanding the underlying drivers of variability in health outcomes and developing novel approaches to aligning incentives to improve health.
Current large-scale projects focus on using patient-level claims data to study outcomes for emergency care sensitive conditions including trauma, sepsis, and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Researchers are developing novel attribution methods that will enable us to develop population-based quality measures and incentive structures. In the future, we hope to explore interventions that can leverage expertise within a region to improve the coordination of health care delivery, such as real-time telemedical consultation and mobile integrated health care solutions, and policy levers that can improve alignment between health system priorities and community needs, such as community benefit tax policy and inclusion of the patient perspective in health care delivery.
The team uses traditional quantitative health services research methods, such as regression and hierarchical modeling, as well as geospatial clustering approaches and machine and deep learning methods to generate a novel understanding of how changes in care delivery can affect patient outcomes. Team members share research findings through traditional mechanisms including manuscripts, posters, and conference presentations, but also use a targeted approach to inform health care policy through strategic engagement with payers and policymakers.
The ACPR team collaborates with partners such as the SpaceTimeEpi Group at the University of Pennsylvania, the Center for Computational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, and the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. We are always looking to expand our team and our collaborations. We welcome individuals interested in population health, health policy, and health care delivery research who seek to develop an externally funded portfolio.
Current Projects
At the moment, the ACPR team is working on several projects including:
A Population-Based Approach to Improve Outcomes After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest:
This five-year study (4/2018 – 1/2023) receives funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. This project uses state-of-the art spatial methods to define the geographic boundaries of out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest service areas and to then benchmark system performance across communities for the entire United States. Our methods define the community based on where these patients live and receive their care. The long-term goal is to empower communities to hold their public health and health systems accountable for the health of the population.
See also https://www.acutecarepolicy.com
For further information contact:
Alexis Zebrowski, PhD
Alexis.Zebrowski@mountsinai.org
READINESS Consortium Core
The Healthcare REsponse, Acute care delivery, Disaster, INformatics, Education, and System Science (READINESS) Consortium strives to use systems science to improve health care and save lives. In addition to Mount Sinai, this consortium includes members from Columbia Medical School, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Nebraska and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Our vision is to ensure that the health care system can meet the public’s needs. Our mission is to build on-the-ground products for health care sector readiness that save lives by bridging front-line medical providers and systems scientists.
Research
We are conducting research that uses systems science to optimize health care sector readiness and response. Specifically, our projects involve:
- Creating multidisciplinary teams from medicine, epidemiology, engineering, informatics, and economics to model how health care supply can meet demand
- Providing scholarship and educational opportunities for trainees across all levels of health care delivery
- Implementing data-driven identification and evaluation of solutions to operational needs (such as space, staff, supplies, systems) throughout the health care system
Translation
We strive to translate our findings to the public and to health system leadership. This involves:
- Providing evidence-based recommendations to health system leadership to develop an all-hazard approach to readiness
- Offering the public access to models of supply and demand for health care resources\
- Incorporating readiness planning into health system governance, operations, and finance
- Promoting the development of a network system approach for the health care sector
- Providing expert consultation to media
Policy Guidance
We are developing policy recommendations to improve readiness and response. To do so, we are:
- Disseminating our findings to policymakers that summarize issues and make concrete recommendations based on the best available data
- Creating payment and regulatory reform initiatives that will increase readiness
- Establishing a forum to assess private-sector health care delivery models alongside public sector preparedness efforts
Implementation
We are designing and deploying practical tools for stakeholders, by:
- Creating regionalized strategic planning for future health threats
- Establishing real-time data sharing capabilities (e.g., hospital beds, staffing, durable medical equipment, personal protective equipment) in the health care sector
- Developing mutual aid agreements with local, regional, and national partners to ensure timely response during public health emergencies
- Providing consulting and practical guidance on performing after-action reports that guide future-readiness
For further information contact: