ACEP and the American Hospital Association (AHA) met May 22, 2018. Discussion included:

Resilience and Well-Being: Jay Kaplan, MD, FACEP, ACEP Past President provided an update on ACEP’s work in the area of well-being, including the 2017 EM Wellness Week initiative and the recent EM Wellness Summit as well as three main activities of a consensus paper to be submitted for publication, a survey on workplace issues contributing to lack of wellness, and the formation of an EM wellness institute.

Opioids: Laura Wooster, MPH, ACEP associate executive director for public affairs, provided an update on ACEP’s advocacy work in the opioid area and the process for expansion of the Alternatives to Opioids (ALTO) program. Sandra Schneider, MD, FACEP, ACEP associate executive director for academic affairs, talked about training materials and an app ACEP is developing to help expand ALTO. AHA confirmed support of ACEP’s federal legislative efforts through the Preventing Overdoses While in Emergency Rooms (POWER) Act. The group discussed how AHA could advocate for fewer burdens on the waiver process to allow for easier prescribing of medication-assisted treatment. ACEP President Paul Kivela, MD, MBA, FACEP, discussed ACEP support of Collective Medical Technologies and the Emergency Department Information Exchange and our work to expand that, but also the limitations on resources because of new ways patients are presenting and seeking medications in the emergency department.

Drug Shortages: Ms. Wooster provided an update on ACEP’s work to address drug shortages. AHA co-signed two congressional letters asking U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to convene the FDA’s Drug Shortages Task Force along with other key federal departments and stakeholder groups in order to identify the root causes of drug shortages and make recommendations back to Congress on how to address them. Dr. Schneider discussed efforts to work with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists to have them disseminate alternatives for drugs in short supply. Dr. Schneider also shared information on ACEP’s Emergency Medicine Practice Research Network and offered the resource to AHA to gather information on critical questions.