Alex Novak

I am a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Ambulatory Care at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, having previously worked as a General Practitioner, and have nearly 20 years experience of experience working across three clinical specialties.  Much of my non-clinical time is spent working to develop research in the acute healthcare sector, which has historically been underrepresented and underexplored in academic terms, and my strategic work seeks to offer an alternative paradigm to the disease/organ centered outlook which has hitherto dominated clinical research. My own main research interests are based primarily around the use and development of diagnostic technology in acute healthcare settings, in particular the evaluation of Artificial Intelligence-enhanced imaging, and the broad and varied scope of presentations combined with the high intensity of the Emergency Department workflow provide a fertile ground for innovation within this vast sphere of clinical activity.

I am currently a Clinical Specialist Advisor for clinical medical students in Trinity College, with a specialist interest in Emergency and Acute Medicine. In the wider University I am a Medical Undergraduate Educational Supervisor for clinical students, having previously taught undergraduate medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. I am a supervisor for 5 EMROx Research Fellows (3 current, 2 previous), and previously co-ordinated the departmental i3EM CPD programme for middle grade Emergency Medicine doctors.

I have been the Consultant lead for Emergency Medicine Research Oxford (EMROx) since early 2020, and hold a number of strategic research roles across the national, regional and local acute healthcare sector, including Chair of the Thames Valley Emergency Medicine Research Network (www.TaVERNresearch.org), and Acute Critical and Emergency Care Research Oversight Committee (ACE-CROC). I am a member of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Research Committee and was awarded RCEM Principal Investigator of the Year in 2020. I have a broad portfolio of research projects, including a strong interest in the development and evaluation of AI-enhanced imaging in acute healthcare settings, and am Chief Investigator for the both the GE Critical Care Suite Reader Studies and Simulation Training in Emergency Department Imaging (STEDI) trials.

Soltan A, Yang J, Pattanshetty R, Novak A, Yang Y, Rohanian O, Beer S, Soltan M, Thickett D, Fairhead R, CURIAL Translational Collaborative, Zhu T, Eyre D, Clifton D. Real-world evaluation of AI-driven COVID-19 triage for emergency admissions: External validation & operational assessment of lab-free and high-throughput screening solutions. (2021) Lancet Digital Health Volume 4, Issue 4, e266 - e278

Novak A, Cherry J, Ali N, Smith I, Bowen J, Ray J, Black J, Cornett R, Taylor S, Hayward G, Lasserson D. Point of Care Blood Testing With Secondary Care Telephone Decision Support During Ambulance Service Assessment Of Frail Patients – Evaluation of a Novel Service. (2022) J Paramedic Practice Volume 14 Issue 2

COMBAT Consortium.  A blood atlas of COVID-19 defines hallmarks of disease severity and specificity. (2022) Cell, Volume 185, Issue 5, 916 - 938.e58

Mentzer A, James T, Yonga M, Cox S, Paddon K, Shine B, Bowen J, Novak A, Knight J, Fullerton J Serum calprotectin is not an independent predictor of severe COVID-19 in ambulatory adult patients. J Infection  Volume 84, Issue 2, e27 - e29 Published online December 2021

Reschen, M.E., Bowen, J., Novak, A. et al. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency department attendances and acute medical admissions. BMC Emerg Med 21, 143 (2021).

Lumley SF, Richens N, Lees E, Cregan J, Kalimeris E, Oakley S, Morgan M, Segal S, Dawson M, Walker AS, Eyre DW, Crook DW, Beer S, Novak A, Stoesser NE, Matthews PC. Changes in paediatric respiratory infections at a UK teaching hospital 2016-2021; impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. J Infect. 2021 Oct 29:S0163-4453(21)00540-5

Erasu V, Novak A. No role for tranexamic acid in the treatment of acute gastrointestinal bleeding

BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine Published Online First: 21 October 2020. 

Hafeez A, Novak A. Epinephrine should continue to be used in the treatment of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine Published Online First: 12 May 2020. 

Gibbs VN, Champaneria R, Novak A, Doree C, Palmer AJR, Estcourt LI. Pharmacological interventions for the prevention of bleeding in people undergoing definitive fixation of hip, pelvic and long bone fracture: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2019

Baron T, Novak A Tranexamic acid in acute traumatic brain injury BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine Published Online First: 21 April 2020

Gulati D, Novak A, Stanworth SJ. Common Haemostasis Issues in Major Bleeding and Critical Illness. Clinical Medicine 2018; 18(4):320-323

Novak A, Stanworth SJ, Curry N. Do we still need cryoprecipitate? Cryoprecipitate and fibrinogen concentrate as treatments for major hemorrhage — how do they compare? Expert Review of Hematology. 2018; 11(5):1-10