It is with great enthusiasm that I nominate C. Anthoney Lim, MD MS for the Unsung Hero from New York ACEP. The over-arching theme throughout Dr. Lim’s career has been to provide the highest quality of care for his patients and their families. Healthcare access for children presents challenges in availability of inpatient, behavioral, and intensive care beds which result in a boarding epidemic in our Emergency Departments. Additionally, negative social determinants of health impact follow up care and result in poor outcomes for children with asthma and mental health conditions in marginalized and underserved communities. model for children admitted to the SSU for mental health crises has resulted in the safe discharge of almost half of children initially requiring inpatient psychiatric admission.  Since 2017, Dr. Lim built  and ran the Pediatric Short Stay Unit (SSU), the NYC metro region’s only observation unit dedicated to the care of children.

Dr. Lim built and ran the Pediatric Short Stay Unit (SSU), at MSBI.provides patient-focused, family-centered care to children requiring admission for up to 48 hours. Located at a community site, it eliminates the burden transfers place on families and also accepts patients from across our health system, which preserves beds at the Children’s Hospital for those with complex medical needs. He has implemented programs in the SSU to provide continuous albuterol and high-flow nasal cannula therapy to children with asthma and bronchiolitis which has reduced the need for Pediatric ICU beds by two-thirds. A co-management model for children admitted to the SSU for mental health crises has resulted in the safe discharge of almost half of children initially requiring inpatient psychiatric admission.

Recognizing the burden of asthma in children, Dr. Lim leveraged proven strategies in ED-based universal screening and linkage to deliver equitable care focused on addressing social needs. With support from the DSRIP program, he developed an ED-based asthma clinic to provide medical care, caregiver education, SDOH screening and care coordination for children with asthma. Leveraging data from this, he secured foundational support to implement universal screening for children with severe asthma phenotypes and navigated linkage to pediatric subspecialists to improve disease management. This program has been subsequently successfully expanded throughout our health system.

Recipient Bio:
Dr. Czer Anthoney Lim is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, and Medical Education and Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. He practices emergency medicine at the Pediatric Emergency Department at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. His research interests include pediatric asthma, prehospital care, trauma, observation and healthcare delivery.

Dr. Lim’s research focuses on the multi-disciplinary care of children with acute illness and injury, care coordination across multiple platforms and health care resource utilization. His approach to developing collaborations with stakeholders in clinical, academic, community, and industry has resulted in successful grant applications that support innovative programs. He has been involved with planning the ongoing expansion of the health system and ensuring consistent and quality emergency care for children across eight hospitals which provide medical care to over 80,000 visits annually. He developed innovative approaches to the care of children, such as Pediatric Hospitalization and Home, an emergency department-based High Utilizer Asthma Clinic the Pediatric Short Stay Unit, which was the first observation-level care unit for children in the New York City region. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount Sinai, he was on faculty at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Jacobi Medical Center as the Associate Director of Pediatric Emergency Ultrasound.