Media Coverage

Local news outlets reported on a partnership between American Medical Response (AMR), UBMD Emergency Medicine and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to equip and prepare health care workers for mass casualty events. "Because of their specialized training, [emergency medical physicians] can perform in real-time, on-site, assessments, care, on the scene medication and direction, outside the scope of the standard EMS," Allison Brashear, dean of the Jacobs School, is quoted on WKBW-TV. Johanna Innes, program director of the fellowship in emergency medical services at the Jacobs School, said in The Buffalo News that UB physicians will staff new emergency response vehicles. "The great thing about having so many vehicles is that availability will always be there, because we all work clinical shifts," Innes said.

Buffalo Business First published an article on how Buffalo MATTERS, a program developed by UB emergency medicine physicians to expedite patient access to comprehensive and effective opioid use disorder treatment, received $8 million from New York State to expand. The state funds will be used to hire more providers to expand telemedicine coverage round the clock for assessment and medication prescribing, which will help fill gaps in parts of the state where there are fewer options for health care. “So many people struggle with mental health and addiction at the same time,” said Joshua Lynch, clinical associate professor of emergency medicine in the Jacobs School. “Those two things will help, and with that will come a new electronic referral platform later this year that will allow all this to happen and to refer people without making phone calls.”

Emergency Medicine News reported on a new study on pediatric emergency care and quotes E. Brooke Lerner, PhD, professor of emergency medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, who chairs the national Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network, which is conducting the study. “This is a 20-site study and would be impossible without a large-scale network,” she said.

WBFO broadcast a story about a new state law that allows transfusions to be administered to patients on medical flights and quotes Kaori Tanaka, assistant professor of emergency medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and Mercy Flight medical director. "Blood transfusions that would be started in the field would be best served for patients that we would categorize as in hemorrhagic shock or having severe blood loss," she said, adding that the ability to provide blood while en route to the hospital in ambulances is often nothing short of lifesaving. The story says that New York State was the last state in the nation to allow this.

Physician’s Weekly reported on UB research finding that treatment with the inhaled corticosteroid ciclesonide did not shorten time to COVID-19 recovery among non-hospitalized adolescents and adults with mostly mild symptoms, according to findings from a randomized clinical trial; however, the study authors found that the drug many still have a use in treating COVID. “Ciclesonide did not achieve the primary efficacy end point of reduction of time to alleviation of all Covid-19-related symptoms,” wrote UB’s Brian Clemency and colleagues.

WBFO-FM also ran a story about how emergency room physicians affiliated with UBMD have developed a way to improve access to care for people with substance abuse issues. New York MATTERS uses tech to connect first responders to an outpatient treatment program. “The main reason why police, fire, EMS and first responders in general get frustrated with this disease process is that we don't have a ton to offer,” said Joshua Lynch, associate professor of emergency medicine. “But, suddenly, you put a very powerful referral network into the hands of a police officer or an EMS provider. It’s actually very empowering. Now they are able to do something for the patient and it decreases the chance that they are going to get called back again for a similar problem.”

Daily Mail and Med Page Today reported on UB research suggesting that ciclesonide, an inhalable asthma treatment, did not help lessen the number of days COVID-19 patients experience symptoms. However, the team did find that the treatment group, when compared to the control group, was less likely to visit the emergency room or become hospitalized for reasons related to COVID-19. “Any COVID-19 treatment that can reduce emergency room visits or hospital admissions provides a benefit not just to the patient, but also the health care system and the community at large,” said Brian Clemency, professor of emergency medicine in the Jacobs School and the study’s first author. What’s New 2-Day, Press From, and Niagara Frontier Publications also provided coverage.

National Public Radio and other outlets reported on innovative treatment programs that have been developed in some of the nation’s Emergency Departments in order to meet the growing opioid addiction crisis, which has worsened during the pandemic. The stories discuss New York MATTERS, the program launched by Joshua J. Lynch, DO, clinical associate professor of emergency medicine, and colleagues, which gives patients access to buprenorphine and quickly links them to addiction clinics to continue treatment.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo are looking for people diagnosed with COVID-19 to participate in an outpatient treatment study. Brian Clemency, DO, associate professor of emergency medicine, says researchers want to know how effective certain treatments, specifically monoclonal antibodies, might be in treating the disease. “So all of these are medications that are already available to certain patient populations right now. And so these are not experimental medicines that you can only get in a lab. These are things that certain patients are getting right now. And we're trying to do our due diligence to make sure they are truly helpful, because COVID is going to be here for the long run. And so we want to make sure we have the treatment options really hammered down and the evidence really understood,” says Clemency.

Buffalo Spree’s Medicine in WNY issue reported on local researchers fighting COVID-19. They include Steven E. Lipshultz, MD, A. Conger Goodyear Professor and Chair of pediatrics, who is applying his expertise studying other viruses in children to COVID-19. “At this point, we have enough of an initial safety signal to say that for some children, it can kill them, and for others, it can be life-threatening,” he said. The piece also includes interviews with Oscar G. Gomez, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, who is looking at social determinants of health with regard to COVID-19, and Brian Clemency, DO, clinical professor of emergency medicine, whose research focuses on younger patients who may not get as sick as older patients but who, Clemency says, are likely to spread the disease more. Clemency is doing a smartphone study to see if steroid-based inhalers are effective in treating young people with relatively mild cases of COVID-19.

A story about distinguishing symptoms related to COVID-19 and those associated with the flu, including fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, sore throat, runny nose, congestion, muscle pain, body aches, headache and weakness, quoted Brian Clemency, DO, an associate professor of emergency medicine. “[Though similar] there appear to be subtle differences. For instance, a cough associated with COVID-19 tends to be dry, rather than phlegmy,” said Clemency.

Brian Clemency, DO, associate professor of emergency medicine, is lead author on a study that found the loss of taste and smell had the highest correlation to a positive test result for COVID-19. “The data analysis showed that the loss of smell or taste, which has only recently been included in the list of COVID-19 symptoms, was the symptom with the highest likelihood of a positive result,” Clemency said, adding that fever was also predictive of positive test results. 

Emergency 911 calls for medical help plummeted by more than 25 percent nationwide during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by first author E. Brooke Lerner, PhD, professor of emergency medicine. Lerner notes that when people make fewer 911 calls but those calls involve more serious issues, “it means that people with urgent conditions are likely not getting the emergency care they need in a timely way. The result is increased morbidity and mortality resulting from conditions not directly related to exposure to SARS-CoV2.”

Emergency medicine researchers — including Brian Clemency, DO — have launched a study to see if a steroid medication typically used to treat asthma can help patients with COVID-19. “Some people with viruses or other illnesses feel better sooner, faster with these kinds of medicines, so our hope in this case is that it will be helpful too,” says Clemency, associate professor of emergency medicine. Sanjay Sethi, MD — professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine — helped Clemency set up the study in the region.

Temperatures are on the rise, and for the near future there is not much relief in sight. “Heat is a risk for all, but especially at the extremes of age,” said Robert F. McCormack, MD, professor and chair of emergency medicine. Dehydration is the primary risk. “Heat exposure can be life-threatening,” he said. “Sweating helps people to shed heat. If someone is hot and stops sweating, gets confused or passes out, it is a medical emergency and an ambulance should be called.”