The December 2013 issue of Health Affairs focuses on “The Future of Emergency Medicine: Challenges and Opportunities.” The following organizations joined the American College of Surgeons (ACS) in providing support for the special issue: Hospital Corporation of America, the American Hospital Association, the Emergency Medicine Action Fund, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, and Medical Emergency Professionals. The College provided grant funding for the issue.
Included in the issue is an article titled “Sustaining a Coordinated, Regional Approach to Trauma and Emergency Care Is Critical to Patient Health Care Needs,” by ACS Immediate Past-President A. Brent Eastman, MD, FACS; Ellen J. MacKenzie, PhD, professor and chair, Fred and Julie Soper Professor in Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD; and Avery B. Nathens, MD, FACS, Toronto, ON, an ACS Governor who previously served on the ACS Committee on Trauma.
Other articles in this special issue explore media-propelled myths of emergency care; the controversies surrounding the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act; the past, present, and future of emergency care; the development of integrated networks of care; quality measures; and efforts to reduce costs.
