Social Emergency Medicine Track
What is social emergency medicine? Heading link
Social Emergency Medicine focuses on integrating social contexts into the practice of emergency care. It provides a framework for understanding how social determinants of health and health disparities affect patient outcomes in the emergency department, impacting both individual and community health and shaping the illness experience.
Program objectives and core competencies Heading link
The goal of our Social Emergency Medicine Track is for participating residents to assert competence in addressing and alleviating health disparities. This program seeks to provide residents with the tools to deconstruct how social factors impact health outcomes and to build skills to provide high quality, patient-centered, culturally appropriate care to all patients, particularly those who are underserved and marginalized. This program is aimed at creating the future leaders of Social Emergency Medicine in our specialty. Participants will:
- Understand the relationship between societal factors and health disparities and outcomes.
- Engage in meaningful mentorship and scholarship aimed at addressing health disparities through community (local or international) and ED-based interventions.
- Experience and gain appreciation for interdisciplinary approaches to healthcare challenges that are faced in emergency care.
- Work in teams to develop an area of expertise in Social Emergency Medicine and to create a didactic that will be used to teach all EM residents during our regularly scheduled EM conference.
- Work in teams to complete a Social Emergency Medicine Capstone Project.
Participants in this track will work closely with the program director to identify subject matter experts in their areas of interest. The residents will be provided the mentorship needed to ensure milestones are met. The participants will work closely in groups with track members, faculty mentors and the program director to design, implement and disseminate their Social EM Capstone project in the form of a conference presentation and/or scholarly publication.
How to participate in this track Heading link
This opt-in track is offered in addition to the integrated Social Emergency Medicine didactics already included in the residency program.
We encourage you to review the program materials and contact Dr. Inboriboon to express your interest in participating and with any questions.
Current social EM research projects Heading link
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Better Health Through Housing
The Better Health Through Housing (BHH) program is a partnership between the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health) and the Center for Housing and Health (CHH), a subsidiary of the Aids Foundation of Chicago. It is a demonstration pilot that is drawing attention to the nationally-validated Housing First model here in Chicago, with a goal of scaling and sustaining a permanent collective solution among healthcare, government, and housing agencies that will result in a dramatic reduction in the number of chronically homeless. Although the chronically homeless constitute 10-15% of the total homeless population, they account for 80-90% of public cost and utilization. Housing First programs throughout the country have demonstrated it costs society one-third to a half as much to provide supportive housing rather than allowing citizens to remain homeless.
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The CHAMPIONS NETWork
The CHAMPIONS NETWork (Community Health And eMPowerment through Integration Of Neighborhood-specific Strategies using a Novel Education & Technology-leveraged Workforce) is an innovative, community-based program that advances health equity by using the untapped resource of high school students from under-served communities to act as health screeners and advocates for an at-risk population who might otherwise “fall through the cracks” of the healthcare system. The CHAMPIONS NETWork improves population health at the grass-roots level with a huge impact on saving lives and improving health in hard-to-reach communities. The program also creates a pathway to college and professional health careers for under-served youth – creating the next generation of health researchers and clinicians.
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Illinois Heart Rescue (ILHR)
Illinois Heart Rescue (ILHR) seeks to increase out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survival rates in the State of Illinois by at least 100%. To accomplish this goal, we have partnered with the Illinois Department of Public Health and existing state-wide quality improvement systems (Get with the Guidelines Stroke, Mission Lifeline) to recruit and train Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems and hospitals in Illinois to collect quality cardiac arrest data into the CARES database that encourages improvement in local systems of care for sudden cardiac arrest. Our focus is to reduce health disparities in cardiac arrest outcomes using hot spotting to identify and intervene in communities with the highest incidence of cardiac arrest and poorest outcomes.
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ROOTS
Reaching out the system: HIV care where you are (ROOTS) is an innovative project to address gaps in care for people living with HIV.
This project aims to develop a novel HIV care model ROOTS Medicine (Reaching Out Of The System: HIV care where you are) to improve retention in care for PLWH affected by structural violence. The vision for this model is to provide care to any individual who experiences barriers to accessing care in the traditional hospital or clinic setting through an innovative care model. This project is in partnership with Project HEAL, an EMR-driven HIV screening and linkage to care program at UIC, and Chicago Recovery Alliance, a mobile outreach organization that focuses on harm reduction for people living with HIV and drug use.
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L@s Ganas
The word “ganas” in Spanish means “motivation sufficient to act.” L@S GANAS supports Latinx students in STEM with a great amount of “ganas”, desire, will and effort no matter where the student comes from or where they are going. The L@s GANAS Research Fellowship is a 2-year program that engages students in research-intensive experiences in Life Sciences, Chemistry, and beyond. Dr. Del Rios is one of many research mentors on campus supporting this program. Students participating in this program work closely with experienced researchers while earning credit and gaining hands-on experience.
Research addressing disparities Heading link
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Targeting of Uncontrolled Hypertension in the Emergency Department (TOUCHED)
The primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of an emergency department-initiated Educational and Empowerment (E2) intervention targeting moderately elevated BPs (≥140/90 mmHg) in a predominately minority population with high rates of uncontrolled hypertension by examining mean BP differences between the two trial arms. Secondary objectives include testing whether this ED education and empowerment intervention improves overall rates of BP control (defined as BP < 140/90 mmHg), improvement in cardiovascular risk score, medication adherence (as measured by the Modified Morisky Scale), primary care engagement (measured by compliance with outpatient follow-up appointments), and HTN knowledge improvement (as measured by a validated HTN knowledge survey).
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Improving Sickle Cell Care in Adolescents & Adults in Chicago (ISAAC)
Many Chicago adolescents and adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) (1) lack longitudinal regular ambulatory care, (2) infrequently use hydroxyurea, and (3) have inadequate pain control. The Improving Sickle cell care of Adolescents & Adults in Chicago (ISAAC) research team is developing interventions that will improve health outcomes for adolescents and adults with SCD using a multi-level, multi-modal approach that addresses barriers to evidence-based care in the Chicago area.
COVID-19 research Heading link
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Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparities in a COVID HTN population (REACT)
The Better Health Through Housing (BHH) program is a partnership between the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health) and the Center for Housing and Health (CHH), a subsidiary of the Aids Foundation of Chicago. It is a demonstration pilot that is drawing attention to the nationally-validated Housing First model here in Chicago, with a goal of scaling and sustaining a permanent collective solution among healthcare, government, and housing agencies that will result in a dramatic reduction in the number of chronically homeless. Although the chronically homeless constitute 10-15% of the total homeless population, they account for 80-90% of public cost and utilization. Housing First programs throughout the country have demonstrated it costs society one-third to a half as much to provide supportive housing rather than allowing citizens to remain homeless.
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COVID Testing Registry (CTR)
A survey to collect information on anyone tested for COVID. Patients tested for COVID-19 will be offered information about COVID-19 and access to support resources available through the City of Chicago.
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Illinois Unidos
Illinois Unidos is a cross-sectoral partnership of healthcare providers, researchers, community leaders, labor organizers, grassroots workers, elected and appointed government officials, and others. The partnership’s main objectives are to address COVID-19’s health, social, and economic impact; reduce COVID-19 transmission; and prevent morbidity and mortality related to COVID-19 in Illinois’ Latino communities. This work occurs through community mobilization, advocacy and policy development and analysis, as well as the design and implementation of culturally- and linguistically-appropriate community/public awareness and education programs focusing on COVID-19.