Emory Healthcare welcomes Marc Popovich, MD, as the new Director of Critical Care for Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital and Emory Johns Creek Hospital. In this role, Popovich oversees the coordination of physicians and works with nursing leadership in the intensive care, critical care and cardiovascular intensive care units at both facilities.

At Emory Saint Joseph's, Popovich is developing and implementing cost-saving, state-of-the-art critical care programs including the early mobility program and sepsis care program. "We are standardizing these programs, and with the early mobility, our goal is to get patients up and moving, which will lead to a reduced length of stay in the hospital," he says. Popovich also notes that the sepsis program has been developed to manage patient care, with a special focus on early identification of the medical condition in order to provide better treatment on both campuses. At Emory Johns Creek, Popovich is working with the ICU physicians and staff to ensure that each patient receives excellent care with positive resulting outcomes.

Critical care services at Emory Saint Joseph's and Emory Johns Creek are part of the Emory Center for Critical Care, which is led by Timothy Buchman, MD. The Center integrates intensive care units throughout Emory Healthcare, and is focused on quality care that is timely and efficient with core services provided by a team of dedicated experts. This includes more than 40 intensive care physicians, 450 critical care nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, nutrition support specialists and consultant physicians representing dozens of medical specialties. Each has special interest, training and advanced competency in the care of the critically ill patient and their family.

Prior to his arrival at Emory Saint Joseph's, Popovich served as the medical director of the surgical intensive care unit as well as the medical director of anesthesiology critical care services at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. During his 25-year career there, Popovich led the successful development of critical care programs for three different community hospitals within that healthcare system, including Lakewood, Medina and Hillcrest. Additionally, his extensive background also includes establishing a multidisciplinary rounding program for the Cleveland Clinic¿s intensive care units.

During this time, Popovich also served as the director of the Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program at the Cleveland Clinic, training more than 100 fellows who have since become directors of critical care units both internationally and across the U.S.

Popovich received his medical degree from The Ohio State University. He completed his internal medicine residency at Riverside Methodist Hospital, his anesthesiology residency at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and his fellowship in critical care medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. He is a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine and the American College of Physicians.