About
Dr. Bitner is a practicing emergency physician who serves as the Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Prisma Health–Upstate, and Associate Professor in Emergency Medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville. Dr. Bitner is currently partnering with Clemson departments of management and marketing to focus on ED operational research. Dr. Bitner graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hampden-Sydney College and Alpha Omega Alpha from the University of Miami School of Medicine. He completed residency training in emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, where he was Chief Resident. After residency he completed a fellowship in Pre-Hospital and Disaster Medicine at Emory, where he was awarded the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine/Medtronic-Physio- Control Emergency Medicine Services Research Fellowship. He completed his Master of Education degree at the University of Cincinnati, focusing on adult learning strategies and instructional design. While in Atlanta, he served as the Medical Director for Grady Emergency Medical Services, Sandy Springs Fire/Emergency Services, Milton Fire/Emergency Services, Emory Emergency Medical Services, and the Chattahoochee River 911 Authority as well as the region’s Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT). After his move to North Carolina, he served as Medical Director for Vance County Emergency Services, Associate Medical Director for Durham County Emergency Services, and Warren County Emergency Services. Dr. Bitner has traveled to Columbia, Rwanda, Republic of Georgia, and Mozambique, where he helped train pre-hospital personnel and physicians in emergency medicine and trauma care. For more information, see his Curriculum Vitae.
How their research is transforming health care
In the house of medicine, emergency medicine is relatively young specialty. Though from its birth with the Alexandria plan to the modern practice of emergency medicine, emergency physicians have always focused on bringing the right resource to the right patient at the right time. As healthcare continues to evolve, Dr. Bitner’s current research is focused on coupling emergency department operations with physician engagement to optimize patient experience and outcome based quality metrics, while stewarding enterprise resources to minimize the impact of the shift from a production based environment and fee-for-service to Merit-based incentive payment systems and alternative payment models. Additionally, he plans to continue to explore trauma and injury-based research by harnessing big data from electronic medical systems to provide new insights into classic questions.
Health research keywords
Clinical Operations, Patient Safety, Patient Satisfaction/Patient Experience, Clinical Quality and Decision Support Systems, EMS operations, Pre-hospital education, Graduate medical education, Curriculum development, Adult-learning strategies/Instructional System Design, Educational Technologies, Emergency medical response planning
