Precision Emergency Medicine: Setting a Research Agenda

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Developing a precision emergency medicine research agenda will help guide the adoption of patient-centered, data-driven care in the emergency care setting.

Project Details -
Completed

Precision medicine leverages data-driven approaches to tailor healthcare to each patient's unique characteristics, such as their biological profiles, disease manifestations, environment, and socioeconomic status. Adopting precision medicine in emergency care would shift the field toward more personalized, data-driven, and higher-quality treatment. However, most emergency medicine providers lack familiarity with these data sources, their interpretation, and how to modify clinical practices accordingly. Emergency medicine has been on the periphery of the precision medicine discourse, lacking a unified definition and a clear research agenda.

To bridge this practice gap, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine organized a national consensus conference to develop a prioritized research agenda focused on precision emergency medicine, titled "Precision Emergency Medicine: Setting a Research Agenda." This event brought together experts from academia and the technology industry on May 16, 2023, to explore the main factors influencing precision emergency medicine, identify implementation challenges, and create a detailed 10-year research plan with a focus on patient-centered outcomes.

The specific aims of the research were as follows:

  • Develop a shared understanding of precision emergency medicine.
  • Establish a research agenda for precision emergency medicine for the next decade.
  • Identify educational gaps that must be addressed for emergency providers.

One year before the event, the committee formed nine expert working groups in various fields, including biomedical ethics, population health and social emergency medicine, and technology and digital tools. The groups met regularly to develop key research questions that would form the basis of the research agenda. The committee invited prominent figures in the field to speak at the conference and encouraged professionals from the technology sector to participate in the day's activities. The final meeting agenda included a keynote speech, panel debates, interviews, brief presentations, networking opportunities, a technology exhibit 'gallery walk', and consecutive working group sessions that concluded with a consensus on the research agenda.

One hundred and fifteen on-site individuals representing 53 academic institutions from the United States and Canada participated in the conference. A draft definition of precision emergency medicine was unanimously accepted by the participants. Through iterative discussions, the attendees refined and agreed on the final questions that comprise the research agenda in three rounds of dialogue. The conference culminated in a 10-year research agenda designed to promote the adoption of this innovative practice paradigm through extensive stakeholder engagement. This agenda will guide future investigations and inform funding agencies in the field.