Wesley Ely

Dr. Wesley Ely is a subspecialist in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine who conducts patient-oriented, health services research as a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is also a practicing intensivist with a focus on Geriatric ICU Care, as the Associate Director for Research for the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research and Education Clinical Center.  Dr. Ely’s research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with ICU-acquired brain disease (manifested acutely as delirium and chronically as long-term cognitive impairment).  He has built the ICU Delirium and Cognitive Impairment Study Group, amassing several thousand patients into cohort studies and randomized trials that were used to build the methodology for ICU acquired brain disease research.  His team developed the primary tool (CAM-ICU, translated into 30+ languages) by which delirium and health-related quality of life outcomes are measured in ICU-based trials and clinically at the bedside in ICUs worldwide.  Dr. Ely has been continuously federally funded (NIA and/or VA) for 15 years.  He has over 350 peer-reviewed publications and over 50 published book chapters and editorials.