EVIDENCE-BASED EMERGENCY MEDICINE WORKING GROUP

MINUTES 11/2/99

Present: Jim Celentano, Peter Dayan, Barney Eskin, Phil Hubel, Peter Wyer, Ben Yeh

The meeting was called to order at 5:15 PM by Peter Wyer

OLD BUSINESS

Minutes of the September meeting were reviewed and approved.

OCTOBER WORKSHOP

Post workshop evaluations were received from 15 of the 16 participants. Barney Eskin will collate the results and submitted them to ACEP so that CME credit can be obtained for the course.

WEBSITE

Ben Yeh reported that when Email is used for communication, there has been a problem with attachments because acceptable formats differ from one user to another. He proposed a solution to this, namely that documents be converted to HTML format for posting on the website. However, this would require both opened and protected sections of the website. The opened sections would continue to be used for posting minutes of our and interest group meetings. The closed sections would include documents being worked on by various committees of the SAEM EBM Interest Group, for example, CAT bank submissions.

JOURNAL CLUB BANK

Ben Yeh reported that the journal club bank receives about 2 submissions each month. There are two residencies which currently use the bank to run their journal club. Ben is working on improving the engine used to search for topics in the bank. In addition, work is in progress on being able to keep track of how many times the bank is accessed.

BROOKLYN WORKSHOP

The workshop planned for the spring is indefinitely postponed, partly because the programs involved have run out of money. Site visits at individual programs might be arranged to substitute for this.

NEW BUSINESS

TREASURER'S REPORT

Phil Hubel will prepare a balance sheet for the year 2000. He explained that although he keeps track of the funds, the actual money is kept at NYAM and disbursed by Cynthia McConnell under his direction.

FUNDRAISING

The issue of fundraising for the coming year was discussed, including a possible renewal of the Pfizer grant or acquisition of other grants.

FUTURE WORKSHOPS

Where and when to hold future workshops was discussed. Options include:

1. Edmonton, Alberta: Advantages include the favorable exchange rate with Canadian money, less expensive hotels than NY, a computer lab, and the presence of Rob Hayward there, who was until recently the webmaster at McMaster.

2. NYAM: One disadvantage is the cost of hotels in NY city. Furthermore, if we were to set up a workshop independent of the Internal Medicine group, the resources of NYAM might not be available to us without charge (for the past 2 workshops, they have been gratis because of the NLM grant that Rosanne Leipzig had obtained).

3. Peter Dayan proposed setting up a 2 day workshop in April or May of 2000 for Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows. He has sent out letters to program directors in the metropolitan area and anticipates 10-20 participants. Choosing between two consecutive or separate days would depend on the preferences of the participants.

Further discussions about future workshops are ongoing. However, should a workshop be done again at NYAM and 2 tutorial groups be available, perhaps one of these groups could be an advanced group consisting of people that had attended previous workshops and wanted to further their knowledge of EBM.

GENERAL CHAT ROOM

Barney Eskin mentioned that he had posted an announcement on EMED-L, a general emergency medicine mailing list, about the year 2000 McMaster course. Following this, a query was received about the possibility of an open site where evidence-based medicine issues could be discussed. We decided that opening up the EBEM mailing list for this would not be appropriate. However, it would be appropriate to post an offer on EMED-L and other mailing lists to have questions submitted to owner-ebem@ebem.org and that group members could then reply to the queries. Furthermore, it was suggested to advertise that the website itself could serve as a resource for people interested in learning more about evidence-based medicine.

The next monthly meeting will be held at the NY Academy of Medicine, 1215 Fifth Avenue (at 103rd St.) at 6:30 PM on December 7th. Food will be available.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:30 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Barney Eskin