Clare Atzema

Dr. Atzema is an emergency physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Toronto, a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) and ICES, and the Research Program Director of the Integrated Community Program at SRI. She completed a BA in psychology at Simon Fraser University, obtained her MD from the University of British Columbia, and completed her residency training at McMaster and the University of Toronto following a fellowship at UCLA. She earned her MSc in clinical epidemiology from IHPME at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Atzema's research focuses primarily on chronic cardiovascular diseases, such as atrial fibrillation and hypertension, as they present in the emergency setting, as well as how their care continues (or doesn't) when they are discharged home at the end of their ER visit. She does this by conducting health services research, using province-wide health datasets to determine how to optimize emergency care for patients with chronic disease flares, including how to connect these patients back to their longitudinal care providers in the community (i.e. primary care provider, specialist care) following discharge from the ER. Thus her research focus is on providing 'wraparound' care of patients with chronic disease flares who are seen in the ER, improving the continuity of care following the ER visit.