Saving Lives Through Science: A Global Emergency Medicine Trials Summit

Description of the summit

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global research response, particularly in emergency medicine (EM), was hampered by the absence of an integrated global Learning Health System that could be leveraged to rapidly generate evidence to guide clinical and policy decisions in around the world. Climate-mediated disasters are also adding new challenges to caring for emergency department (ED) patients around the globe including marginalized patients who are the most impacted by climate change. Pandemic and climate-mediated disaster preparedness both need similar research infrastructure to be readily activated when needed.

While the World Health Organization played a crucial role in coordinating the global response to COVID-19 such as sponsoring the SOLIDARITY trial, there were certain limitations and challenges they faced in relation to global trials and learning health systems: (1) limited authority and enforcement, (2) resource constraints, (3) data sharing and standardization challenges, (4) fragmented research landscape, (5) political and economic influences, (6) delays in information dissemination, and (7) limited capacity building in low- and middle-income countries. Despite these limitations, the WHO played a vital role in coordinating the global response to COVID-19. Notwithstanding these important efforts, the pandemic highlighted the need for a stronger and more integrated global health architecture with enhanced capacity for coordinating research, promoting data sharing, and facilitating rapid learning and knowledge translation.

The UK COVID-19 experience demonstrated how a highly performing integrated Learning Health System can deliver timely evidence to answer urgent questions using innovative pragmatic platform trials. Building on the success of the UK’s response, global EM research could improve its pandemic and climate-mediated disaster preparedness by exploring how clinical trials could be more globally integrated to support an equitable Learning Health System.

This summit plans to bring EM trialists from around the world together in person or virtually to discuss how their trial networks operate in their respective countries and present their success stories and lessons learned. Guest speakers with insight into global pandemic trials will be invited to speak about how global EM trial networks could work together to expand international collaboration and participation in clinical trials in EM. Trialists from multiple international and national level trial networks will be invited to attend. This will be an open meeting and all trialists interested in participating will be welcome to this in-person or online summit. Finally, a paper on this summit will be submitted to the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine summarizing the discussions held during the meeting about the benefits of leading international clinical trials in emergency medicine, the challenges that need to be addressed and recommendations for future international clinical trial efforts in emergency medicine. All invited Faculty speakers and interested attendees will be invited to co-author the publication.

Objectives: At the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1- Compare and contrast the structural and operational characteristics of at least three different national or international emergency medicine trials networks, citing specific examples.

2- After reviewing case studies of international emergency medicine trials networks, participants will be able to highlight the scientific impact of these networks and evaluate the key lessons learned in terms of their implications for future trial design and collaborations.

3- Through expert panel discussions, participants will discuss potential strategies to strengthen partnerships between national and international emergency medicine trials networks, with the goal of enhancing preparedness for future pandemic trials.

Preliminary Program

(all times are in Eastern Time Zone, Montreal, Canada. Room 511CF)

8:00-8:30 – Introductions – Ice Breaker – Land Acknowledgement

8:30-8:50 – InFACT presentation (John Marshall – virtual presentation)

8:50-9:10 – WHO Solidarity Trial – REMAP-CAP (Srinivas Murthy – virtual presentation)

9:10-9:30 – United Kingdom EM trialist (Steve Goodacre – virtual presentation) 

9:30-9:50 – India prehospital EMS research (Ramana Rao – virtual presentation)

9:50-10:10 – Panel discussion with John Marshall, Srinivas Murthy, Steve Goodacre, and Ramana Rao – Q&A

10:10-10:40 – Break – Networking

10:40-11:10 – CEDRN and Learning Health Systems (Corinne Hohl – in-person)

11:10-11:30 – PERC  (Samina Ali – in-person)

11:30-11:50 – NCER (Laurie Morrison – in-person)

11:50-12:10 – Panel discussion with Laurie Morrison, Corinne Hohl, and Samina Ali – Q&A

12:10-12:30 – Patient Engagement during a Pandemic (Anne Bhéreur – virtual presentation)

12:30-13:30 – Lunch – Prepared lunch boxes on site

13:30-13:50 – Indigenous Health and Research: Community Health in Urban and Rural Contexts (Christopher Fletcher and Lisa Watt – in person)

13:50-14:10 – Australia – HIRAID study (Julie Considine and Kate Curtis in-person)

14:10-14:30 – GEMINI: Harnessing hospital data to improve healthcare (Fahad Razak – in person)

14:30-14:50 – Panel discussion with Christopher Fletcher, Lisa Watt, Julie Considine, Kate Curtis, and Fahad Razak – Q&A

14:50-15:10 – Canadian Critical Care Trials Group (Rob Fowler – virtual presentation)

15:10-15:30 – Break – Networking

15:30-15:50 – European Society for Emergency Medicine (Robert Leach – in-person) 

15:50-16:10 – GUARD/ATTACC-CAP platform trial – (Sylvain Lother – in-person)

16:10-16:30 – Précrisa/One Health (Caroline Quach-Thanh – in-person)

16:30-16:50 – Panel discussion with Robert Leach, Sylvain Lother, Caroline Quach-Thanh – Q&A 

16:50-17:10 – Closing remarks and plenary for Q&A and comments 

Registration fees: $150 in-person, $40 virtual

In collaboration with:

For information: Martyne Audet, Research Coordinator. martyne.audet.cisssca@ssss.gouv.qc.ca