Precision Emergency Medicine: Setting a Research Agenda - PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Precision emergency medicine is the purposeful use of big data and technology to safely, efficiently, and
authentically deliver acute care for individual patients and their communities. This approach builds upon the
foundation of precision medicine, in which clinical decisions are tailored to individual patients through the
application of genomic, biological, environmental, and public health data. In this model, emergency physicians
can leverage many emerging sources of patient data derived from technologies such as wearable and
implantable devices, -omics, rapid point-of-care testing, and community-based and public health databases.
Machine learning and other artificial intelligence can strengthen analyses of these data and improve the
accuracy of clinical decision-making. The use of technology, multi-source data, and analyses contextualized to
the local community can paint a clearer picture of the whole person and individually tailor emergency care to
their specific needs. Taken together, the adoption of precision medicine principles would represent a paradigm
shift in emergency medicine towards technology-enhanced, data-driven, higher quality, individualized care.
However, most emergency providers are unfamiliar with these new data sources, how to interpret them, and
how to modify their clinical practices accordingly. Research is needed to understand how to best implement
precision emergency medicine in an effective and equitable manner. In the 2023 Society for Academic
Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Consensus Conference, Precision Emergency Medicine: Setting a Research
Agenda, we will convene experts and thought leaders from academia and the technology sector to examine
the key catalysts of precision emergency medicine, identify implementation challenges, and develop an
actionable 10-year research agenda with relevant patient-centered outcomes. SAEM consensus conferences
are annual, one-day scientific meetings that have successfully used a consensus-building approach to craft
research agendas for groundbreaking and important topics in emergency medicine for over 20 years. The
proposed SAEM consensus conference will introduce precision emergency medicine as a conceptualization of
translational science that results in specific, timely, patient-centered, emergency care. Our conference
outcomes will stimulate further research to examine precision emergency medicine as a safer, higher-quality,
more accessible, and more equitable clinical care paradigm than current practices. To accomplish these goals,
we will host a methodologically rigorous consensus conference that will meet the following aims: (1) develop a
shared mental model of precision emergency medicine, (2) establish a research agenda for precision
emergency medicine for the next decade, and (3) identify educational gaps that must be addressed for
emergency providers.
