Project Grant R03HL180982

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute awarded The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco $246,000 on August 14, 2026, under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837) to analyze clinician-level variation in chest pain admission practices and its impact on downstream patient outcomes.

The research will evaluate how emergency department clinicians' admitting tendencies for chest pain patients without acute coronary syndrome evidence affect subsequent testing and clinical outcomes. Using a 20 percent national sample of Medicare claims from 2013 to 2020, the study will profile clinicians' admitting patterns during 2013–2015 and classify them as high or low admitters within each ED. The analysis will then assess ED visits to these clinicians from 2016 to 2020 to determine whether patients seen by high-admitting clinicians undergo more coronary testing and invasive procedures, and whether clinician admitting patterns influence 30- and 180-day outcomes including downstream acute myocardial infarction admissions and all-cause mortality. The project is designed to inform practice feedback interventions to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and associated costs while maintaining patient safety.

Work is performed in San Francisco, California. The period of performance runs from August 14, 2026, through May 31, 2028. The award is classified as a Project Grant.