Innovations in Clinical Care Award | Emory School of Medicine

2024 Winners Spotlight

Brandon Kitay Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Since joining Emory in 2020, Dr. Brandon Kitay’s implementation and stewardship of several innovative interdepartmental initiatives have dramatically improved timely access to resources for Emory Healthcare (EHC) patients and the non-psychiatric providers who care for them. His rapid mobilization of the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) in four EHC primary care practices covering over 37,000 unique patients has provided team-based care for over 2,500 patients with psychiatric symptoms to date, most of whom have never accessed mental health treatment in their lifetime. Dr. Kitay has also created a clinical platform that serves as infrastructure for education, research, and innovation. Embedded within the Emory Clinic at Midtown and Dunwoody Family Medicine, primary care trainees are afforded the opportunity to acquire advanced skills in the management of psychiatric disorders and experience doing as part of a multidisciplinary team. With Dr. Kitay as a site principal investigator, EHC practices have recently completed participation in a national, multicenter NIMH sponsored clinical trial (NCT04600414) studying the impact of universal screening and the CoCM on identification and management of opioid use disorder (OUD) in the primary care setting. Dr. Kitay and his team received a 2023 Emory Innovation Award to support EMR integration of a digital mental health platform, NeuroFlow®, that provides patients with technology assisted- and monitored self-directed care enhancing the Collaborative Care experience beyond the traditional office visit based model.

Hong Li Human Genetics

Dr. Hong Li established the Emory Center for CTCF-related disorders (CRD Center) in 2019 after a 2-year-old boy with a mutation in the CTCF gene came to her clinic. With little information available in the medical literature on the natural history of this disease, Dr. Li set out to understand the range of symptoms affecting patients with CRD. Dr. Li was responsible for changing the name of the disease in OMIM from “Mental Retardation, autosomal dominant 21” to CRD, and she then recruited an increasing number of affected individuals, currently around 120, from all over the world to participate in studies carried out at the Emory CRD Center. Dr. Li’s careful analysis of CRD phenotypes in patients with different ages led to the discovery of a potential relationship between CRD and Wilm’s tumor. Dr. Li has also organized two conferences for families of patients with CRD. Conference participants donated blood samples that will be used to make iPSCs, and then employed to prepare brain organoids and induced neural crest cells to understand the cellular basis of CRD. Dr. Li has become the reference expert in the world for the treatment and study of CRD. Her dedication to developing new approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of this disease is exemplary and shows her extraordinary concern for innovating patient care to best serve her patients and establish Emory as the recognized leader in the treatment of this disease.

Nomination Process

One or more awards will be given in each of the following categories:

Assistant Professor
Associate Professor

Deadline

Nominations will be accepted through July 10, 2024.

Eligibility

All faculty with a primary appointment in the SOM. The faculty member’s rank at the time of nomination will determine the category in which they are eligible.

Nominations

Faculty must be nominated by a faculty or a staff member of Emory University, Emory Healthcare, or an Emory affiliate. The nomination should consist of a concise narrative (500 words or less) describing the individual’s visionary approach to problem-solving, performance improvement, and clinical program development and implementation within the clinical care setting. Some examples can include but are not limited to:

Demonstrates a visionary approach to clinical problem-solving and performance improvement
Develops innovative solutions to delivering patient care resulting in improved access, quality, continuity of care and/or patient outcomes
Builds effective collaborative relationships across different groups to define and resolve clinical problems
Creates or is involved in creating programs/initiatives that demonstrate positive change for patients and/or staff
Disseminates new techniques or programs/initiatives that transform patient care more broadly and/or that can be adapted for diverse patient populations

Submission

Use the online Award Nomination Form and include the following:

Nominating letter (500 words or less)
Optional materials: Up to two letters of support (500 words or less) from internal or external individuals or organizations

Decision

Will be made by the School of Medicine Recognitions Committee and approved by the Dean.

Award

Recipients of the Emory School of Medicine’s Innovations in Clinical Care Award will be announced and honored during the annual Celebration of Faculty Eminence.

Questions should be directed to SOM Office of Faculty Academic Affairs and Professional Development at somfde@emory.edu.