Brain injuries and neurological disorders are can be life threatening, disabling, and extremely challenging to manage. The Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) providers specialize in post-operative neurosurgical care to neurologically complex patients such as those with stroke, brain tumors, and nerve and muscle diseases. The patient population of the NCCU requires care providers to interface between the brain and other vital organ systems. The Neurosciences Critical Care Division physicians are experts in this field and place the family and patient experience and communication at the forefront of their work.

NCCU Designated as Precision Medicine Center of Excellence

The Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine Center of Excellence for Neurocritical Care (NCC PMCOE) has been recently established at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. This newly designated NCC PMCOE will function under the umbrella of the Precision Medicine program and will use the PMED analytic platform. The Precision Medicine Program has committed funding and resources for the next 2 years to help the NCCU PMCOE investigators realize their aims developed from a value framework seeking a clinical impact:

Aim 1: To develop and implement a highly accurate risk prediction score for post-operative neurosurgical complications. We hypothesize that this risk score will effectively identify low-risk neurosurgical patients who can be triaged to less intensive environments other than the NCCU in a safe and efficient manner.

Aim 2: To develop and implement a highly accurate risk prediction index of neurological deterioration for NCCU patients. We hypothesize that this risk index can effectively alert clinicians so they can emergently evaluate and manage at-risk patients before clinical deterioration occurs.

Aim 3: To determine the efficacy and effectiveness of the NCCU triage score and neurologic deterioration index by testing them in pragmatic clinical trials evaluating clinical and economic outcomes.

NCC PMCOE Leadership 
Director: Jose I Suarez, MD
Deputy Director: Robert Stevens, MD
Scientific Lead: Robert Stevens, MD; William Stanley Anderson, MD, PhD; Betsy Zink, RN,
Data Managers: Peter Dziedzic, MS; Eusebia Calvillo, RN

inHealth Resources (all provided by the PM Initiative):
Data Manager
Data Science
Health Economics
Health System Business Analysis
Project Management

Division Faculty and Clinical Associates

Jose Suarez, MD
Division Chief

Juan Carhuapoma, MD, FAHA
Sung-Min Cho, DO, MHS
Romer Geocadin, MD
Austen Lefebvre, MD
Rohan Mathur, MD, MPA
Marek Mirski, MD, PhD
Athir Morad, MD
Susanne Muehlschlegel, MD, MPH
Paul Nyquist, MD, FAHA, FCCM
Hans Puttgen, MD
Kathryn Rosenblatt, MD
Adam Schiavi, MD, PhD, MS
Robert Stevens, MD
Tachira Tavarez, MD
Wendy Ziai, MD, MPH

NCCU Nurse Practitioners

Lourdes Carhuapoma, MS, ACNP-BC, CCRN
Marie Depew, MS, ACNP-BC, CNRN
David Hering, MSN, AG-ACNP-BC
Breana McKinnon, DNP
Khushbu Patel, DNP, AG-ACNP-BC
Batya Radzik, MSN, CRNP

NCCU Research Nurses

Eusebia Calvillo, BA, ADN, RN, CCRP