EVIDENCE-BASED EMERGENCY MEDICINE WORKING GROUP

MINUTES 12/7/99

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

The meeting was called to order at 6:55 PM by Peter Wyer.

OLD BUSINESS

Minutes of the November meeting were reviewed and approved.

OCTOBER WORKSHOP

An summary of the workshop was presented by Barney Eskin, based on analyzing the questionnaires filled out by the Emergency Medicine participants before and after the workshop. Overall the course and faculty got a rating of "good" (8 on a scale of 1-10). The tutors were rated "excellent" (10 on a scale of 1-10). Again on a scale of 1-10, comparing post and pre workshop scores, familiarity with key concepts rose from 4 to 7 (0="Clueless" and 10="Can teach about") and familiarity with key procedures, from 6 to 8 (0="needs basic instruction" and 10="can be done independently"). When asked, "What were the most positive aspects of this meeting?" the small group tutorial format was mentioned by 9 of the 16 participants, and several also particularly like the informal and interactive nature of the workshop. When asked to offer suggestions for improving the course, 5 of the 16 participants asked that more information about how the tutorial sessions would be run should have been sent out before the course.

Peter Wyer obtained ACEP category I CME credit (24 credits). Barney Eskin will print out the certificates and distribute them to the participants.

Phil Hubel will coordinate calling all centers that sent more than one participant to find out how the workshop changed their attitude and practice.

WEBSITE UPDATE

The website has had about 1900 visits since May, mostly to the journal club bank. Feedback has been generally positive.

JOURNAL CLUB BANK

Peter Wyer and Ben Yeh presented a display at the SAEM meeting in Boston in 1999 on the Journal Club Bank. They are in the process of submitting it for publication to a journal.

Encouraging postings on the bank of areas of particular interest or controversy was discussed.

POSTING OF DOCUMENTS ON THE WEBSITE

Ben Yeh has arranged to post documents that members of the SAEM interest group have been working on on the website in HTML format. Members interesting in using this service should send documents directly to Ben. Other members who wish to suggest changes to the posted documents should send those suggestions to the group leaders listed on the website.

FUTURE WORKSHOPS

McMaster 2000

Last year there were 8 EM participants and 1 tutorial group. We are hoping to expand this to 16 participants and 2 groups. Whether this happens or not may depend on how many EM applications McMaster gets.

NYAM 2000

Peter Dayan has volunteered as the course director and will be assisted by Barney Eskin. Several options for the course were discussed:

1. Expand participants to include ED physicians outside teaching programs.

2. Offer a separate track for those who have already taken the workshop, but want to take it again on a more advanced level. Of the approximately 60 internal medicine residencies in the NY metropolitan area, approximately 40 have already sent participants to the 3 previous workshops. Of the 15 EM programs (excluding NJ), 9 have already sent participants. A suggestion was made that site visits to each of the programs that have already participated in the workshop may be useful to find out what the EBM practice of the programs are currently and what their further needs are.

3. Geographic expansion: promote the course nationally. This may require that we do the workshop separately from the internists and that we get funding for this ourselves. We might be able to get administrative help from ACEP and/or SAEM for this. Rosanne Leipzig will be asked to give us a copy of the budget for this year's NYAM workshop.

CENTER OF HEALTH EVIDENCE

Rob Hayward, the former informatics guru at McMaster, is now in Alberta, and has set up a web site which has a single interface containing all components useful for EBM available on one screen. These include referral to other internet sites, electronic textbooks, CAT banks, etc. Brian Rowe and Steve Hayden have applied for a grant to study the use of this site by keeping track of how the site is accessed.

EMA PROJECT

Peter Wyer is working on the project with Emergency Medicine Abstracts, organizing the portion of their database which is useful for EBM.

FUTURE FUNDING

Several possible sources of funding were discussed. Ben Yeh will look into an EMF educational grant (maximum $5000). ACHSP grants require a rigorous research design. As last year, the pharmaceutical industry will be approached again for possible grants. The deadline for applying for an SAEM Educational Grant is February 2000.

The next monthly meeting will be held at the NY Academy of Medicine, 1215 Fifth Avenue (at 103rd St.), at 5:15 PM on Tuesday, January 4th. Food will be available. The meeting will be followed at 6:30 by a presentation by Dan Mayer on teaching EBM to medical students. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:35 PM. Respectfully submitted, Barney Eskin