About us
The Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) is a non-profit organisation funding innovative Australian research that improves the way people are cared for in a medical emergency. Our research is delivering better and more effective health services to save lives and money.
We are the only Australian organisation dedicated to driving, coordinating and supporting multi-disciplinary emergency medicine research and its translation. We also actively engage in educational and promotional activities to help translate research outcomes into real and practical benefits, which help save lives in medical emergencies.
We support emergency health professionals – doctors, nurses, paramedics, retrieval staff and allied health professionals – to design, execute and translate world-leading research into more cost-effective healthcare delivery. Through our work, we also support and collaborate with hospitals, patients, governments and corporates as well as the wider community.
Every day, emergency medicine staff face time and resource challenges that need to be overcome to improve patient experiences and outcomes. EMF prioritises this research to deliver demonstrable benefits to patients, staff and hospitals, and we educate and support emergency department staff to translate research outcomes into practice.To make this happen, we embed translation processes into our research programs and actively engage in educational and promotional activities to help transfer research into real and practical benefits in medical emergencies.
Since our launch in 2007 – with the support of the Queensland Government – EMF has established a reputation for delivering rapid results and high-impact outcomes from emergency medicine research.
We rely on government funding and donations from organisations and individuals to support our research programs. EMF is a non-profit organisation with charitable, health promotion and deductible gift recipient (DGR) status.
Our history
The Emergency Medicine Foundation grew out of the Queensland Emergency Medicine Research Foundation (QEMRF). QEMRF was established on 23 October 2007 as a Queensland Government response to broader issues of high workloads in Emergency Departments and the increasing demands of treating large numbers of critically ill patients. At the time, Queensland emergency medicine doctors forfeited further salary negotiations in exchange for funding to conduct emergency medicine research. QEMRF was given the mission to conduct and facilitate research that improves the practice of Emergency Medicine in Queensland. It was intended that through the creation of new research capability and capacity in Queensland, it would stimulate a more intellectually challenging environment that would contribute toward the attraction and retention of specialists in Emergency Medicine in Queensland and particularly in Queensland’s public hospital system.
In October 2014, QEMRF founded the Emergency Medicine Foundation to raise funding nationally for research projects and education campaigns to support emergency medicine. In 2016, the Board made the strategic decision to merge the two companies.
Streamlining our operations under one brand has created economies of scale, and reduced administrative costs also reduced confusion in the marketplace to help create a strengthened, cohesive national brand. We continue to run our dedicated Queensland Research Program and are looking to replicate this model in other States and Territories as well as developing national research programs aligned with Australian health priorities.
The following individuals and organisations were instrumental in negotiating and establishing our Foundation:
- Mr Rupert Tidmarsh, Senior Industrial Officer – Salaried Doctors Queensland
- Ms Jenny Cannon, QPSU Advocate – Together Queensland (formerly Queensland Public Sector Union)
- Mr Kerry Gallagher, in his capacity as the former Chief Executive Officer – Australian Medical Association of Queensland
- Dr Sylvia Andrew-Starkey, in her capacity as the former Chair – The Australasian College of Emergency Medicine (Queensland faculty)
- Dr Michael Sinnott, Senior Staff Specialist Emergency Medicine – Princess Alexandra Hospital
Our finances
EMF is a non-profit organisation who receives ongoing funding for our research programs from the Queensland Government, corporations and the general public. As an organisation, we work hard to keep our administrative costs low. We are grateful to the many emergency medicine professionals who volunteer their time and expertise.
