University Hospitals Emergency Medicine and Public Health Innovator Grows and Implements Evidence-based Research to Improve Healthcare and Outcomes

UH Research & Education Upate | February 2025

Kiran Faryar, MD

From a young age, Kiran Faryar, MD, MPH, a board-certified emergency physician and clinician researcher, was passionate about emergency medicine and the prospect of treating a variety of patients. Eventually, she realized the power of integrating research and public health in the emergency department (ED) to prevent disease and improve patient outcomes.

Today, as Director of Research for the Department of Emergency Medicine at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Dr. Faryar oversees broad departmental research infrastructure, capacity building, and faculty research development. She regularly cultivates and leads multi-disciplinary research collaborations to integrate evidence-based practices in the ED to better address acute and chronic health conditions and behaviors that put patients at risk of developing more complicated and costly health scenarios.

Dr. Faryar’s primary research work is in the field of implementation science, investigating screening and intervention best practices in the ED. She has initiated, managed, and disseminated on public health and health services programs in both academic and community EDs including HIV, Hepatitis C virus, and latent tuberculosis infection screening and linkage to care; take-home naloxone distribution; initiation of medication for opioid use disorder for patients with opioid use disorder with next-day linkage to care; and county-wide COVID-19 testing through an $18 million COVID program funded by the CARES Act.

Groundbreaking Studies Fuel Evidence-Based Clinical Practices to Improve Patient Outcomes

The rapidly growing cadre of ED research at University Hospitals involves everything from alternatives to opioids to studies examining the optimal management of heart failure patients to cardiac arrest clinical trials. As an example, the department was recently invited to participate as a site in the National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial, “Influence of Cooling Duration on Efficacy in Cardiac Arrest Patients (ICECAP).” The study will enroll comatose adult survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who have been rapidly cooled using a definitive temperature control method to determine if an optimal duration of cooling can improve clinical outcomes.

Likewise, in July 2024, University Hospitals received a nearly $1.5 million from the Department of Health and Human Services through its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to develop and implement an Alternatives to Opioids program within its ED. The project, led by Dr. Faryar, aims to decrease opioid use in the ED by educating providers on integrative therapies such as music therapy and acupuncture, implementing these modalities within the emergency department, and providing sustained outpatient follow-up through University Hospitals Connor Whole Health. The research builds evidence for how to best promote and integrate these integrative medicine modalities in emergency medicine to more effectively treat patients and improve their long-term outcomes.

“We have a responsibility to make sure we are always looking to see how we can improve patient care through evidence-based system investigation,” says Dr. Faryar. She envisions an ED at University Hospitals that is heavily involved in studies of all kinds, to maximize the clinical benefit to patients, a scenario that is quickly unfolding. When Dr. Faryar joined University Hospitals in July 2021, there was no formal Division of Research. She now leads the Division of Research, which includes four grant-funded full-time Clinical Research Project Managers, four grant-funded full-time Research Assistants, and a departmental Statistician.

Early Exposure to Emergency Medicine and Research Opportunities Drove Career Vision

Dr. Faryar was born and raised in Cincinnati, where her mother worked as an ED nurse for 36 years. This provided rich emergency department exposure for Dr. Faryar as a volunteer, before she pursued medical school.

Rich ED experiences fanned her interest in the integration of emergency medicine with public health as a career focus, initially as an undergraduate student at Miami University. This continued into medical student at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton where she ultimately earned a dual medical and master’s in public health (MD/MPH) degree.

“When applying to medical school, it became clear to me that you really are as healthy as your environment,” says Dr. Faryar. In the ED setting, she saw opportunities to not only help a diverse range of patients at an individual level but also help patients on a larger public health scale via prevention and public health initiatives.  

Throughout her education and career, Dr. Faryar has reaped the benefits of mentorship at every stage. Her residency faculty mentor at the University of Louisville, Dr. Martin Huecker, was the Research Director of her program. He engaged her in a project to evaluate the effects of Kentucky’s comprehensive opioid legislation on patients presenting to the ED with prescription opioid or heroin abuse. The experience piqued her interest in research, particularly the posing of clinical questions, data analysis and uncovering evidence-based approaches to care.

Similarly, during her first faculty position at the University of Cincinnati, following a one-year Research Fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. Faryar worked with Dr. Mike Lyons, an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and practicing emergency physician who specialized in public health and health services integration in the ED. Dr. Lyons mentored her through many aspects of research, including principles of implementation science, grant funding, and research collaboration.

Now more established in her career, Dr. Faryar views mentorship of students, residents, and peers as vital to her field because “you have to grow the pipeline of emergency medicine researchers.”

To date, Dr. Faryar has over 20 peer-reviewed publications in top-tier emergency medicine and public health journals and has been awarded numerous industry, local, state, and federal grants for public health and health services.

On a national level, she is the Chair of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Research Director’s Interest Group and an active member of the SAEM Research Committee and EMTIDE (Emergency Medicine Transmissible Infectious Diseases and Epidemics) Interest Group.

Among the many aspects she enjoys working at University Hospitals, she is energized by witnessing these research programs come to life in the ED whether it be linking vulnerable patients to HIV/HCV treatment or improving patients’ pain with alternatives to opioids. “It is so rewarding and motivating to see the clinical effects of our department's research efforts in the day-to-day care that we provide in the ED.”