The Emergency Medicine Foundation announced a record fundraising year of more than $1 million in unrestricted donations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. Those dollars will be matched by ACEP, and the majority of those monies will be used to start an endowment to fund research not just this year, but many years into the future.

During the 2012-2013 fiscal year, EMF awarded more than $450,000 in grants. The diverse grantees received funds to engage in everything from bench research on drug interactions to clinical research on CT scan utilization and opiate use to health care policy research studying the effects of emergency department closures on mortality.

A full list of grantees is on the EMF web site, www.EMFoundation.org.

EMF is working hard to make sure that no matter what practice environment you work in, the research it funds will help you improve the care you deliver. Since its inception, EMF has awarded more than $10 million in grants and developed many world-class emergency medicine researchers.

Although EMF cannot take credit, because of the research developed by many emergency medicine investigators and the importance of the research, the National Institutes of Health has created the Office of Emergency Care Research (OECR).

EMF has also been involved in helping to develop a Health Policy Research Fellowship to study critical issues affecting the practice of emergency medicine, based on a successful model used by the NIH.

EMF believes this Health Policy Research Fellowship program will meet multiple needs for emergency medicine: fast-tracking sound research that addresses the challenges faced by the specialty; developing a strong group of emergency medicine health policy researchers for the future; and increasing the presence and influence of emergency physicians in the nation’s health policy apparatus and agencies.

With health care reform and the need to develop quality measures that improve patient outcomes and decreases cost, research is even more necessary to document the value of the specialty of emergency medicine.

Newly hired EMF Director Cathey Wise worked diligently in her first 90 days, not only to help EMF meet the match but also to help EMF redirect its mission, vision, infrastructure, and overall operations.

EMF is also going through a new facelift to raise awareness among emergency physicians, outside donors, and the public. In the next several months, you will see a new website, and there will be a much larger presence of EMF at ACEP13 in Seattle.

We all know that there are many great charities out there that do many wonderful things, but not all are the same. Many charitable organizations have high overhead rates. Because of the contributions of ACEP, EMF is able to say that 100% of individual and medical group contributions go directly to research.

The next time you make an honorary donation, please consider EMF. Help make EMF the charity of choice among emergency physicians.

Dr. Kivela is managing partner of the Napa Valley Emergency Medical Group in California and a member of the ACEP Board of Directors.