Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennslyvania, has been named as the director of the Emergency Care Coordination Center (ECCC).  Following a landmark report on the future of emergency care by the Institute of Medicine, the ECCC was created by Presidential Directive in order to improve national preparedness and response by promoting research, regional partnerships, and effective emergency medical systems.  The ECCC exists within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness & Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).  The ECCC’s mission is to lead the U.S. Government’s efforts to create an emergency care system that is patient- and community-centered, integrated into the broader healthcare system, high quality, and prepared to respond in times of public health emergencies.

ASPR, led by Nicole Lurie, MD, MSPH, an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania and the Perelman School of Medicine, was created in 2006 by the Pandemic & All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA).  ASPR’s mission is to ensure that the country is prepared for public health emergencies, including those cause by bioterrorism, and to respond to them when local and state resources are overwhelmed.  The ASPR office has three operational components focused on development and procurement of medical countermeasures, emergency response in times of disaster and public health emergency, and an office dedicated to strategic policy initiatives.  Fundamental to ASPR’s approach to preparedness is the belief that a prepared nation requires a strong day to day emergency care infrastructure.

Dr. Carr is residency trained and board certified in emergency medicine, and completed fellowships in trauma and surgical critical care, as well as in health policy research as a part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Clinical Scholar program.  He serves as an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), co-director of the Center for Emergency Care Policy and Research, a Senior Scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a Senior Fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.  In 2010, Dr. Carr led a national conference to define the agenda for emergency care system development, and his primary research focus has been on understanding how the organization of emergency care impacts outcomes in unplanned critical illness.  He has received funding from numerous federal agencies and has published extensively on the association between how emergency care systems are designed and outcomes for trauma, stroke, cardiac arrest, and severe sepsis. 

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