How to Turn Your Quality Improvement and Medical Education Activities into Scholarship (Sponsored by Research Committee and Research Directors Interest Group)

Quality improvement (QI) projects are pervasive among both community and academic EDs. While QI projects typically focus on a single ED with the intent to implement a new product or process to improve care of patients and delivery of healthcare, research is a systematic investigation with the intent to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge. Both have distinct assumptions and outcomes. Often, quality-, medical education- or operations-focused faculty are interested in turning their QI project into a research publication. The goal of this didactic is to help both traditional and nontraditional researchers transform their QI question into a project ready for publication and dissemination as an abstract and then manuscript. Specific to medical education (MedEd) research, many in academic medicine are engaged in the development of new and novel educational activities and curricula. The development and execution of these educational experiences often closely follow the scientific process and therefore should strongly be considered as opportunities for research and scholarship. The Research Committee (RC) and Research Director Interest Group (RDIG) sponsor this session with the goal of better defining QI and research and helping academic faculty and residents understand the intersection between QI projects, MedEd activities and traditional research studies with the intent to help guide participants on how to take an idea at various stages to a finished publishable product. The target audience includes operations faculty, nontraditional researchers, educators, early-career faculty, and anyone else interested in QI or educational research. The didactic is a multi-institutional collaboration led by clinical and education researchers from the RC and RDIG with significant diversity in backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints. This was previously submitted and presented at SAEM23 under the title: “Rules of the Road for Publishing Quality Improvement Research”. We expanded to 50 min due to audience feedback saying the didactic felt short.

Presenters:

  • Phillip C. Moschella, MD, PhD
  • Joshua J. Davis, MD
  • Janet Lin, MD, MPH, MBA
  • Susan Wojcik, PhD
Authors
  • Dr. Phillip Moschella

    Phillip C. Moschella, MD, PhD

    Prisma Health – Upstate (South Carolina)

    Dr. Moschella is a board-certified Emergency Physician Scientist (MD/PhD) with an extensive background in cellular signaling. He is a full-time clinician, associate professor and the assistant research director for the Department of Emergency Medicine for Prisma Health-Upstate. He manages all the research projects within the department of over 70 physicians and 30 resident physicians. His primary research emphasis surrounds HIV and HCV recognition, and linkage to care from the emergency department (ED), with several publications in top-tier emergency medicine journals. He has expanded his research interests into substance use disorders and specifically opioids. He is the PI on a large ($1.5 million over 3 years) grant from SAMHSA to evaluate the use of Alternatives to Opioids in the ED. He has recently published an exciting systematic review on the effects of peer-recovery services in the ED and on his alternatives to opioids project. His mix of clinical experience and basic science allowed him to advance medical design to solve real-world clinical problems. His collaboration with engineers at Clemson University, have produced publications on a novel portable negative pressure environment for treatment of COVID-19 and a novel pH sensing peritoneal dialysis catheter to aid in early detection of infection in top-tier engineering journals.

  • Joshua J. Davis, MD

    Assistant Professor, Clinical Medicine

    Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine

    Joshua Davis, MD, is an emergency physician in Wichita, KS, who teaches as a faculty member instructor at the Simulation Center University of Kansas School of Medicine - Wichita and a Course Director and Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is the Assistant Medical Director for Ultrasound, Quality, and Research with Vituity in Wichita, KS. His research interests are broad and include emergency medicine clinical topics along with patient safety, interprofessional communication, handoff communication, procedural competency, and medical education. He has published over 75 peer reviewed articles, given multiple national presentations, and written several book chapters. He is involved in developing several national guidelines and curricula.

  • Janet Lin, MD, MPH, MBA

    University of Illinois Chicago

    Janet Lin MD, MPH, MBA is a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, College of Medicine, an affiliate professor in Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and a center affiliate at UIC’s Center for Global Health, serving previously as the director of Health Systems Development. She is also Chief Strategy Officer at University of Illinois Hospital and Clinics (UI Health). In her role she helps to guide the overall strategy and lead transformative healthcare delivery system change. Dr. Lin is the current President of the Chicago Board of Health appointed by the mayor.

    Her work is dedicated to the pursuit of how to improve the access to or the delivery of health care within resource-limited settings through a lens of equity and social justice. In her academic research, Dr. Lin’s work centers on creating and implementing programs related to “preventative – or pro-active – emergency medicine” which recognizes the complexity and nuances of our healthcare system and that the ‘ER’, functioning as a safety net, oft serves as a microcosm of the public health challenges society faces.

    Dr. Lin is a recipient of the University of Illinois Presidential Medallion and the 2021 Physician of the year at UI Health. Dr. Lin serves on the executive board of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. She has also been a long-standing board member and previous President of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians and is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. She previously served on the board of directors of MedGlobal, a humanitarian organization providing locally appropriate care in difficult-to-reach areas of the world that are affected by war, natural, disasters, famine, and ethnic cleansing.

  • Susan Wojcik, PhD, ATC

    Associate Professor & Director of Research, Department of Emergency Medicine

    SUNY Upstate Medical University

    Dr. Susan Wojcik is an Associate Professor in the Emergency Medicine Department at SUNY Upstate Medical University with over 23 years of emergency medicine research and education experience. She holds a PhD in Health Sciences from Trident University, a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, a Bachelor of Science in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University, and was a certified athletic trainer for 32 years. As the Director of Research since 2017, she provides oversight, leadership, and mentorship in all aspects of research and scholarly activities for the department. Dr. Wojcik is also the director of many educational programs including a fellow research seminar series, the residency research requirement, and a medical student research elective. When she is not conducting research and teaching, Dr. Wojcik enjoys doing home improvement projects and horseback riding and puzzles.

Related Media