February 2025: Letter from the Chair

Dear ACEP Emergency Telehealth Section Members:

As our world rapidly evolves, so too do challenges within the field of medicine. In emergency medicine, the ongoing integration of telehealth into our practice has not only expanded our reach but also enhanced emergency services, physician opportunities, and access to quality medical care through its innovative application. We are fortunate that our Emergency Telehealth section members help drive this expansion.

At the most recent ACEP Scientific Assembly, we honored the achievements of this section and its leaders while electing new leaders to continue their commendable work. Now, we welcome many new faces to the Telehealth section executive committee, including the following:

• Chair: Michael Baker, MD, FACEP
• Chair-elect: Marc Bartman, MD, FACEP
• Immediate Past Chair: Emily Hayden, MD, FACEP
• Secretary: Alexander Tran, MD
• Councilor: Iyesatta Massaquoi Emeli, MD, MPH, FACEP
• Alternate Councilor: Kathy Li, MD, MS
• Newsletter Editor: Vacant

I am eager to leverage the skills of our new section leaders to support Emergency Telehealth members. But our section leadership is not yet complete. We are still seeking a Newsletter Editor to highlight our members' achievements, ideas, and challenges. If this fun and visible way of contributing to the section interests you, please let us know.

We thank Dr. Emily Hayden, the immediate past chair for the Telehealth Section, for her years of dedicated leadership of this section. Under her guidance, the Telehealth section grew in both members and resources. She tirelessly represented the interests of telehealth emergency physicians at nearly all levels of ACEP, and now she will continue to use her talents as chair of the ACEP Health Information Technology committee.

This month, we will resume our recurring section membership meetings. Legislative updates will be provided, and members will have an opportunity to spend a few minutes sharing a topic of interest during our section round table. We look forward to learning about each member's current telehealth activities.

In future section meetings, we will have scheduled speakers and panels on telehealth topics. Each of you is already knowledgeable in your respective telehealth activities.  You can help the section simply by sharing that expertise at a future section meeting. Please contact me, Ryan McBride (Staff Liaison), Dr. Marc Bartman (Chair-elect) if you have an interest in speaking on a topic at a future section event.

Over the next couple years, I look forward to discovering the projects and topics that interest our members and advocating for Emergency Telehealth.

Thank you for being the most important part of the ACEP Emergency Telehealth Section!

Michael Baker, MD, FACEP (Chair, ACEP Telehealth Section)