ACEP and the Emergency Medicine Innovation Collaborative (EMIC) are launching the Center for Innovation to fuel emergency physician-led solutions to the biggest challenges in medicine by connecting ACEP members, entrepreneurs and industry.

The Center will be announced at the pitchER Competition & Innovator Meetup on October 6 from 2:30 to 5:15 p.m. central time, during ACEP26 in Chicago. The competition includes live pitches to an expert panel from physician-founded health tech startups that range from wearables that detect opioid overdoses to robots, artificial intelligence and more.

“The Center for Innovation is how ACEP will empower our members with the education, mentorship and connections to turn their ideas into solutions and tools that advance the practice of emergency medicine and the care of our patients,” said ACEP President-Elect Ryan Stanton, MD, FACEP.

The Center is organized around three tracks:

• Events and Experiences. Programming that connects physician innovators with peers, industry and investors, beginning with pitchER and innovation activities at ACEP’s annual meeting.
• Innovation Forum. An advisory body of emergency physicians, including EMIC-nominated members and an EMIC co-chair, that will identify priorities and advise ACEP’s Board of Directors on innovation in the specialty.
• Venture Fund Development. An EMIC-led effort to build a pathway for investment in promising emergency medicine ventures.

“Every emergency physician has seen a problem on shift and thought, ‘there has to be a better way.’ Most of those ideas never leave the department, because the path from bedside to market has been built for someone else,” said Nicholas Stark, MD, MBA, FACEP, co-founder of EMIC. “Working with ACEP lets us reach the whole specialty and turn physician ideas into companies, products and better care.”