Elizabeth Alpern

Elizabeth, MD, MSCE, holds the George M. Eisenberg Professor of Pediatrics, is the Division Chief of Emergency Medicine, and the Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is both a pediatric emergency physician and clinical epidemiologist with research expertise in the use of large databases within research networks to improve the quality and equity of emergent care delivered to children through the application of evidence-based work.

Her research also concentrates on the epidemiology and treatment of the emergent presentations of infectious diseases, including sepsis. Dr. Alpern’s research has been funded by the NIH, CDC, AHRQ, and HRSA, among other sources. She is the principal investigator for the PECARN Registry, a multicenter electronic health record database that explores quality of care indicators, produces audit and feedback report cards, and is instrumental in observational and prospective clinical studies.

She developed an electronic health record database, the PED Screen Registry, to derive and validate predictive models for sepsis in pediatric emergency department patients. Dr. Alpern was a member of the Pediatric Sepsis Definition Task Force who developed the Phoenix Sepsis Criteria, recognized internationally for changing the criteria to identify pediatric sepsis. Dr. Alpern has a passion for mentorship and supporting career development. She has been recognized with awards for her mentorship and professionalism, serving as a mentor to many throughout the continuum of medical professional life. Dr. Alpern has served as a standing member on the National Institutes of Health study sections.

She has published over 175 peer-reviewed articles and has lectured nationally and internationally.