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| Emergency Medicine Informatics
The Northwestern University Department of Emergency Medicine's Section of Informatics is an internationally recognized institution for research and development dedicated to advancing the use of computers and information technology in medicine. The Section’s work is changing the face of emergency medicine. The “central nervous system” of Northwestern Memorial Hospital Emergency Department’s (NMH ED) clinical operation is Traxion, a tracking system written and developed by Dr. Jonathan Handler, the Director of the Section. Traxion has been extensively customized to meet the needs of the NMH ED, and is under continuous evolution and development by the Section. The data from this system, along with other data feeds, form the data infrastructure that supports the clinical, research, educational, and administrative efforts of the Department. The primary reporting system for Evanston Northwestern Healthcare’s Emergency Department is Aesop, a system written and developed by Dr. Michael Gillam. Dr. Handler serves on the Editorial Board of the prestigious Academic Emergency Medicine journal, and has served as an invited reviewer for the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s bio-surveillance grant review process. Drs. Handler and Gillam have each served as President of the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Section of Emergency Medicine Informatics (the largest emergency medicine informatics group in the world), and Drs. Gillam and Vozenilek have each served as President of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Academic Informatics Interest Group. Drs. Handler and Gillam serve as Directors of the National Center for Emergency Medicine Informatics, an innovative not-for-profit entity in the area of Emergency Medicine Informatics. Dr. Handler served as Chair of the 2004 SAEM Consensus Conference on Emergency Medicine Information Technology, and Drs. Michael Gillam and John Vozenilek served as section leaders for that conference. Both Drs. Handler and Gillam served as section leaders for the 2000 SAEM Consensus Conference on Medical Error. The Section has successfully completed work on a multi-year grant from the National Institute of Health's National Library of Medicine. The grant was awarded to the Northwestern University Galter Health Sciences Library and Department of Emergency Medicine toward the creation of a digital Health SmartLibrary for Northwestern University. This digital library offers new ways to consolidate data for ease of online accessibility by Galter patrons, while tailoring the interface and the data to optimally fit user needs. The system is serving as a model for other health sciences libraries around the world, with "open-source" coding to allow rapid incorporation of SmartLibrary concepts into existing library systems. The project has resulted in numerous national presentations and publications that have used SmartLibrary concepts in their research phases. The Section plays a leadership role in the National Bio-Surveillance Test Bed, a major initiative to create a national infrastructure for research and development in the area of bio-surveillance. The initiative is not intended solely for academic use, but also to create an infrastructure to support the country's public health needs by setting up a bio-surveillance network that can truly provide early warning of bio-threats. The Section works closely with the advanced simulation training center run by Dr. John Vozenilek at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. Areas of research and development interest include decision support, operational efficiency, clinical quality, and biosurveillance. The Section of Informatics is vibrant and productive as its leaders continue to publish groundbreaking material in the area of emergency medicine informatics, develop innovative projects, and accept national speaking engagements to push the informatics envelope. To view a list of Informatics Highlights, click here. To read more about PEPID, click here.
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