Jennifer L. Wiler MD, MBA, FACEP is a board certified emergency physician, Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Co-Founder and Director of the University of Colorado CARE Innovation CenterTM, and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado School of Business. She has been appointed to numerous national committees including the American Medical Association RBRVS Updates Committee (RUC), is Past Chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) EM Practice Committee, and past Board member of the Colorado Medical Society. She is a national expert who has authored a number of publications on healthcare policy, access, payment policy, and quality. Jesse M. Pines, MD, MBA, MSCE is a board-certified emergency physician, the Director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Policy Research and a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University, Washington DC. He is a national thought leader in emergency care and health policy and leads Urgent Matters (www.urgentmatters.org), a program that disseminates best practices in acute and emergency care. He is author of over 240 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Affairs, Circulation, and Annals of Emergency Medicine and has contributed to TIME magazine, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal. Michael J. Ward, MD, MBA is a board-certified emergency physician and Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a Ph.D. candidate in Operations Management at the University of Cincinnati. Dr Ward is a recipient of grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, studying the intersection of operational challenges and the delivery of high quality emergency care for patients with time-sensitive emergencies.

'In summary, this is an excellent work that should be read by every physician responsible for operating an ED.' Edward J. Otten, The Journal of Emergency Medicine

• 1. Fifty years of transformation of acute and emergency care Benjamin Easter; 2. Measuring and improving quality of care Jesse M. Pines, Mark S. Zocchi, C. Noelle Dietrich and Molly Benoit; 3. Fragmentation in acute and emergency care: causes, consequences and solutions Benjamin Easter and Arjun Venkatesh; 4. Alternative payment models in acute, episodic care: moving from volume to value Nir J. Harish and Jesse M. Pines; 5. Improving timeliness and access of acute and emergency care: the science of improving emergency department crowding Olan A. Soremekun; 6. Bringing the patient-voice into emergency care Marc A. Probst and Erik P. Hess; Case study 1. Expanding the role of observation care Christopher W. Baugh, Christopher Caspers and Anthony M. Napoli; Case study 2. An innovative strategy to streamline care for behavioral health in the emergency department Michael Turturro, Leslie Zun and Jack Rozel; Case study 3. The geriatric emergency department Ula Hwang and Christopher R. Carpenter; Case study 4. How the UK responded to the 4-hour rule Suzanne Mason and Michael J. Schull; Case study 5. High-cost users: using information technology to streamline care plans Dawn Williamson and Jody A. Vogel; Case study 6. Emergency care in an integrated healthcare delivery system: the Kaiser experience Dana R. Sax, Jeffrey S. Selevan and Wm. Wesley Fields; Case study 7. Urgent care centers: an alternative to unscheduled primary care and emergency department care Judd E. Hollander and Jesse M. Pines; Case study 8. The 'no-wait' emergency department Chris McStay and Jody Crane; Case study 9. Transforming care delivery through telemedicine Judd E. Hollander and Brendan G. Carr; Case study 10. Coordinating emergency care through telemedicine Sarah A. Sterling, Kristi Henderson and Alan E. Jones; Case study 11. Bringing diagnostic testing to the bedside: point of care testing Benjamin Easter and Kelly Bookman; Case study 12. Regionalization of care M. Kit Delgado, Fred Lin and Brendan G. Carr; Case study 13. Clinical decision support tools Kelly Bookman and Ali S. Raja; Case study 14. Automated patient follow-up program Tom Scaletta, Kristin L. Rising and Megan Ranney; Case study 15. Using data on patient experience to improve clinical care Seth Glickman and Abhi Mehrotra; Case study 16. Community paramedicine: the Geisinger experience Manish N. Shah and David J. Schoenwetter; Case study 17. Initiating palliative care in the emergency department Christian Jacobus and Tammie E. Quest; Case study 18. Streamlining patient flow in the emergency department with discrete event simulation Eric J. Goldlust, T. Eugene Day and Nathan R. Hoot; Case study 19. Using emergency department community health workers as a bridge to ongoing care for frequent ED users Roberta Capp and Richard Zane; Case study 20. Big data: use of analytics for operations management Joe Guarisco and James Langabeer II.