Is the specialty of emergency medicine important to you? Do you believe that health care policy makers are missing the mark on emergency medicine?

If you agree then I hope you will join me in contributing to EMF. The Emergency Medicine Foundation needs your help. We have a June 30 deadline to raise $1 million. For each dollar you contribute to EMF before June 30, ACEP will match your unrestricted gift until we reach the $1 million mark!

We are only about $200,000 from reaching our goal. Every dollar you contribute will go into our first-ever endowment, which will strengthen and sustain health policy and basic science and clinical research to ensure our specialty remains on the cutting edge. Health care reform is not going away, and we desperately need more studies that demonstrate how emergency medicine provides value to the health care system.

That is where EMF comes in. EMF is the largest not-for-profit organization exclusively funding emergency medicine research. EMF funds research that extends across a broad spectrum – from bench research to high-powered health care policy research. What is fantastic about EMF is that ACEP and some corporate contributions pay all the administrative costs, so every single dollar you contribute goes to research. And now, your contributed dollar is worth two.

We cannot afford to be run over by quality measures proposed by other groups, and we cannot idly sit by as administrators make claims that emergency medicine is costly or unnecessary.

The money we raise will be used to fund studies to improve the care we provide and demonstrate the value that emergency physicians provide to the health care delivery system so administrators can make informed decisions. NOW is the time to contribute to EMF. NOW is the time to make EMF your charity of choice. And NOW is the time to make a modest contribution to EMF. For every $1 you contribute, it will be worth $2. Your $100, $300, $500, $1,000, or $1,972 will be worth double.

Why is this important? We have to send a message that emergency physicians care about the future of our specialty, and we have to make sure non-evidence based measures that (for example) limit CT scans for headaches never see the light of day.

So, what’s in it for me?

If you are in academics, you obviously understand the value of research. If you are in private practice or are an employee, you undoubtedly are being asked to adjust your care to include “quality measures.” Don’t you want emergency medicine to be involved in determining those measures? Most important, don’t you want to be able to provide the best care for your patients?