During yesterday’s Council meeting, William Jaquis, MD, FACEP, a Florida-based emergency physician, assumed the ACEP presidency. Dr. Jaquis is an attending physician at Aventura Medical Center in Florida. He was elected to the ACEP Board of Directors in 2012 and 2015, and served one year as vice president. He also is a past president of the Maryland ACEP chapter. He is the senior vice president of Envision Health East Florida Division. Dr. Jaquis earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Ohio and completed his residency at Case Western-Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Cleveland. The following is a transcript of his speech to the Council outlining the areas he plans to focus his attention during his tenure.

Good afternoon, and congratulations on the important work you have done in the last two days. I am incredibly humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve as your President for the upcoming year.

As I have been working with staff and the Board, including the executive leaders in preparation for the coming year, I have determined three areas that will need significant focus – workplace, workforce and wellness. Certainly, the area where the patients and physicians meet, the workplace, is an important part of ACEP’s agenda. Getting effective acute unscheduled care to all parts of the country … even internationally … will require continued attention to the workforce. Finally, but as important, the current state of our teams related to burnout and depression must have ongoing intention to improve our individual and collective wellness.

For many of us, a typical day in our departments is increasingly challenging. Our patients are more complex with a shift in acuity and age. Our evaluations are more comprehensive, and with more low acuity patients being treated in sites outside our departments, many of us also have created split flow models. These changes do improve efficiency, but also bring more intensity in the main ED. Add to that environment the mandate to work faster, and we have a very challenging workplace. Finally, when the workday ends, “pajama time” comes – time to finish up those charts that you simply could not get to at work.

Improving the workplace must continue to include conversations about technology. Since 2016, ACEP has endorsed Collective Medical’s EDIE program to streamline the ability to know more about our patients when they come to the ED. Having worked with a robust health information exchange (HIE) in Maryland, I truly understand how a well-designed approach to HIEs makes an ED visit better for the patient AND the physician.  EDIE, which is currently being used in 39 states, continues to develop and bring additional information to more EDs that will help you provide the highest quality care for your patients.