Center for Critical Care 

Clay Marsh, MD, Director

In the spring of 2006, Clay Marsh, MD, professor of Internal Medicine, was named director of a newly established Center for Critical Care at The Ohio State University Medical Center. Marsh also directs the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Sleep Medicine and is associate director for lung research at Ohio State’s Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute. Medical Center CEO Fred Sanfilippo, MD, PhD, says Marsh is an excellent choice to advance the mission of critical care medicine, which also has been identified as one of six Signature Programs at the Medical Center. “Through his translational research leadership and national stature, we will be able to more fully integrate critical and clinical care, research and education between medicine, surgery and anesthesiology,” Sanfilippo says. “Research has shown that implementing evidence-based practices improves outcomes for patients in critical care centers.”

Ongoing Research Programs

• The Center for Critical Care provides innovative solutions for patients undergoing critical care and for those with lung disease. It focuses on personalized health care that defines illness and treatment for each patient and transitions care from disease management to prevention.
• The Center has begun training professionals who care for patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) environment with the Society of Critical Care Medicine-sponsored Fundamentals of Critical Care Support course – the first effort for global training in using this tool in the ICU.
• The Center’s focus on sepsis (organ failure from infection) and personalized health care for patients is moving forward with the establishment of a registry of patients diagnosed with sepsis. This resource will allow caregivers to define risk factors leading to sepsis and identify new targets for patients with this life-threatening disease.
• Clinically, the Center is leveraging the Medical Center’s Information Warehouse to ensure that the Center is executing evidence-based medicine for all patients in the ICU environment. Caregivers are tracking outcomes to define new pathways that will more effectively treat patients in the ICU.