Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Nathan I. Shapiro, MD, MPH – Site investigator and co-founder, EMSHOCKNET.
BIDMC, a major teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is internationally recognized for excellence in patient care, biomedical research, teaching, and community service. It is a Level I Trauma Center and a major adult tertiary referral center for New England, as well as being the primary hospital for the surrounding communities. The Emergency Department at Beth Israel Deaconess manages approximately 50,000 patients each year, with a 30% hospital admission rate, and 7% intensive care unit admission rate.
The state-of-the art emergency department has 48 beds, including 4 designated resuscitation rooms, an 8 bed observation unit. It is equipped with many technological advances including PACs, a system for rapidly sharing digital radiology images via computer instead of film, and a dedicated CT scanner. There is also an innovative emergency department computerized patient tracking and electronic medical record system which CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and Wired Magazine have all spotlighted.
Among independent teaching hospitals, BIDMC ranks third nationwide in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds and this funding has been growing at a rate of twenty percent per year for the past three years. The department of Emergency Medicine supports active programs in clinical research. The department currently has 5 full-time research assistants with greater than 60 hours per week of “on-site” ED coverage. There exists a developed research infrastructure that includes a real-time electronic paging system for patients electronically identified to meet study criteria, access to an online real-time registration list, and dedicated database, statistical and IS support. Research areas of interest include: sepsis, shock and resuscitation, cardiology, gastroenterology, international medicine, bioterrorism, and education. The department is especially known for its cross-disciplinary collaborations as well as its evolving interest in translational medicine.