Research Project Leaders
Development of a Digital Driving Safety Screening Tool for Older Drivers – Laura Korthauer, PhD
Laura Korthauer, PhD
Laura Korthauer, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor (Research) of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a clinical neuropsychologist at Brown University Health. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Korthauer completed residency training in the neuropsychology track of the Brown Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program. She completed an Aging and Dementia fellowship at Rhode Island Hospital as part of Brown’s Clinical Neuropsychology Specialty Training Program. Dr. Korthauer investigates cognitive and neural factors that confer risk for and resilience to Alzheimer’s disease pathology as well as behavioral interventions for dementia prevention.
Project Summary
This study will develop and validate the Digital Rhode Island Vehicular Risk Evaluation (DRIVER), a self-administered digital driving safety screening tool to identify older adults at high risk for unsafe driving, motor vehicle crashes, and traffic violations.
Dr. Korthauer will develop DRIVER by incorporating cognitive constructs shown to predict driving fitness, including visual attention, maze navigation, trail-making, and hazard detection, into an aging-friendly digital interface using an iterative participatory co-design process. The study will establish feasibility of administering DRIVER among older adults with and without cognitive impairment, evaluate usability and acceptability, and validate DRIVER as a predictor of driving safety outcomes, including crash involvement and traffic violations, using both retrospective and prospective data. In addition, naturalistic driving behavior will be assessed in a subset of participants using mobile-based telematics to capture real-world driving performance and identify behavioral indicators of driving risk.
The development and validation of DRIVER will inform the design of future prospective studies and broader implementation efforts aimed at early identification of older adults at risk for unsafe driving and improving injury prevention outcomes.
Multimorbidity Subphenotypes and Effects on Post-Intensive Care Physical Impairments – Maya Cohen, MD
Maya Cohen, MD
Maya Cohen, MD, is an attending physician in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine and director of the Critical Illness Recovery Clinic at Rhode Island Hospital. Dr. Cohen is also an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University.
Dr. Cohen received a medical degree from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and completed internal medicine residency at Temple University Hospital, followed by fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Brown University. During this time, Dr. Cohen also completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship and earned a master of science in clinical and translational research.
Dr. Cohen’s clinical and research interests focus on multimorbidity and recovery following critical illness, including sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and extracorporeal life support (ECLS). Dr. Cohen is a member of the American Thoracic Society, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
Project Summary
Post-intensive care syndrome (PICS)—defined by impairments in physical, cognitive, and mental health after ICU hospitalization—affects approximately half of ICU survivors and is associated with increased mortality, hospital readmissions, and reduced quality of life. Despite its high prevalence, there is limited understanding of how multimorbidity shapes recovery trajectories across PICS domains. With a growing population of multimorbid ICU survivors, there is a need for studies that characterize the relationships between chronic conditions, physical impairments, and mental health outcomes to inform targeted, personalized interventions.
Dr. Cohen will conduct a prospective cohort study of ICU survivors enrolled through a post-ICU recovery clinic to identify multimorbidity subphenotypes using EHR-derived comorbidity data and to examine their associations with health-related quality of life, pulmonary and functional outcomes, and healthcare utilization. The study will characterize PICS-related functional impairments using novel, non-invasive assessments, including submaximal exercise testing and near-infrared spectroscopy, and will incorporate wearable technology to measure physical activity and physiologic parameters in the home environment. A mixed-methods approach will be used to evaluate mental health outcomes using standardized measures and to explore patient experiences through semi-structured interviews, with the goal of characterizing the relationship between mental health, multimorbidity, and physical recovery.
Feasibility Trial of an Implementation Bundle for the National Emergency Airway Registry for Pediatric Emergency Medicine (NEAR4PEM) Pre-Intubation Checklist – Robyn Wing, MD, MPH, FAAP
Robyn Wing, MD, MPH, FAAP
Robyn Wing, MD, MPH, FAAP is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine & Pediatrics at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, and also the director of pediatric simulation at the Brown University Health Medical Simulation Center. Dr. Wing’s research focuses on pediatric emergency medicine, pediatric airway management, quality improvement, implementation science, and medical education including simulation-based graduate medical education and interprofessional education. In 2022, she was awarded the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Junior Faculty Teaching Award.
Dr. Wing is co-founder and co-chair of the National Emergency Airway Registry for Pediatric Emergency Medicine (NEAR4PEM), leading efforts to improve and study pediatric airway management in emergency departments across the world. Dr. Wing was granted an Injury Control COBRE pilot project award in January 2024 for her study “Creation of an Implementation Strategy Package for the National Emergency Airway Registry for Pediatric Emergency Medicine (NEAR4PEM) Intubation Checklist.”
Project Summary
Tracheal intubation (Tl) of critically ill children presenting to the emergency department after trauma is a lifesaving but challenging procedure. Quality improvement efforts using airway management checklists have improved outcomes for children undergoing TI in pediatric and neonatal intensive care units. However, there is currently no rigorously developed and implemented checklist for pediatric trauma tracheal intubations in the PED.
Formed under the umbrella of the National Emergency Airway Registry for Kids (NEAR4KIDS), the National Emergency Airway Registry for Pediatric Emergency Medicine (NEAR4PEM) is a multicenter collaborative and prospective registry for advanced airway management in the PED. NEAR4PEM recently created and published a Pre-Intubation Checklist for PEDs. Recognizing that the use of a pre-intubation checklist in the PED is a change in routine clinical care for many departments, Dr. Wing has been using an implementation science approach to create a NEAR4PEM Pre-Intubation Checklist Blueprint, which combines the Checklist with identified optimal implementation strategies and clinical outcomes data feedback. The objective of this study is to use the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework and Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) strategies to guide our implementation of the NEAR4PEM Pre–Intubation Checklist utilizing the Blueprint in a pilot cohort of three pediatric trauma centers. We will use mixed method analyses, including surveys, video review of a proportion of Tis (including all trauma Tis), and focus groups, to measure checklist adherence, acceptability, and fidelity, a necessary step prior to a fully powered implementation and dissemination trial.
