By Christine Giesa. DO, FACOEP

The core of my work as your ACOEP President and Board member is to represent you and ACOEP to the broader medical community. Your Board has been hard at work advancing our agenda and working toward positive change in emergency medicine.

Here are just some of the ways in which I have worked to represent you in recent months.

EDPMA SOLUTIONS SUMMIT: Lead from Where You Are

I attended the EDPMA Solutions Summit. Topics of discussion included how to fight back when insurers are increasingly implementing reimbursement policies that may violate laws that protect patients and providers, such as the Prudent Layperson Standard, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

I participated in a panel discussion “The Future of Emergency Medicine.” Panel discussants included Andrea Brault, MD, chairman of EDPMA and Paul Kivel, MD, president of ACEP. We explored the impact on ED volume by the loss of Level 1 and 2’s to urgent cares and mini-clinics. Within the next 10 years there will be an abundance of emergency physicians- how do we extend our practice? Should we incorporate the hospitalist services under our auspices? We can be a leader in telemedicine.  Emergency physicians need to remember that we are the specialists in unscheduled care. We need to be creative.

Finally, we should not wait for government and others to take action. Others are already taking action on their own. Emergency medicine should look for creative partnerships and unite: ACEP, ACOEP, AAEM, PFC, and EDPMA. All of us are the future of emergency medicine

ACEP LAC 2018

I attended the ACEP Leadership and Advocacy Conference in Washington, DC. ACOEP President Elect Bob Suter, DO FACOEP, and I had the opportunity to represent ACOEP at the Federal Government Affairs Committee Meeting. The topics of discussion for the Solutions Day were treatment approaches used in the opiate free ED and the use of ED- initiated Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) and other support services. Appropriate end-of-life care, such as building clinical protocols into geriatric emergency care, incorporating payment incentives into value-based payment models, and bringing emergency care and follow up palliative care to the patient outside of the hospital, were also key topics.

ACOEP Statement on Drowning

With the coming of spring, postings in the news and on social media began to again appear regarding “dry drowning” and “near drowning.” ACOEP was asked to write a statement dispelling the myths of “secondary drowning” and “near drowning.” A synopsis of ACOEP statement is as follows:

ACOEP defines drowning in three ways – fatal drowning; non-fatal drowning with injury or illness, and non-fatal drowning without injury or illness.

ACOEP urges the media and public abandon the use of the terms ‘near drowning’, ‘dry drowning,’ and ‘secondary drowning’ when speaking, or writing about the medical sequelae of drowning as these are not actual medical terms and often lead to confusion

Drowning deaths do not occur due to unexpected deterioration days to weeks later without proceeding symptoms. A drowning patient who initially appears normal but develops respiratory symptoms or altered mental status more than eight hours after the event, should seek care. The physician should consider other diagnoses than primary drowning in these patients. Other diagnoses to be considered include spontaneous pneumothorax, chemical pneumonitis, bacterial or viral pneumonia, head injury, asthma, heart attack, or other serious injury.”

Visit www.acoep.org/newsroom for the full statement, as well as a downloadable graphic explaining this statement that can be shared with patients, families, and other medical professionals.

RSO Strategic Planning

I was invited to attend the RSO Strategic Planning Session in May.   I am enthusiastic about the future of the RSO, and ACOEP with these enthusiastic, talented young leaders taking on new responsibilities and spearheading new initiatives.