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Profile

Nicole Franks MD

  • Department of Emergency Medicine
    Professor
  • Emory University Hospital Midtown
    Emergency Medicine
    550 Peachtree Street NE
Head shot of Nicole Franks

Overview

Dr. Nicole Franks is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and has over 20 years of clinical experience. She currently serves as the Vice President, Clinical Outcomes Optimization for Emory Healthcare (EHC) where she is responsible for integrating and standardizing the implementation of clinical quality efforts and goals across all Emory Healthcare, including ambulatory, in-patient and all affiliate organizations. Her interests and expertise include operations, medical staff affairs, physician leadership, health equity, community engagement, risk management and quality and patient safety. Dr. Franks founded and is the former director of the Emory Emergency Medicine Administrative Fellowship that trains future physician leaders in Emergency Medicine. Dr. Franks is also a former Chief Quality Officer and Associate Medical Director for the Emergency Department at Emory University Hospital Midtown (EUHM). While in her role as CQO at EUHM, Nicole established the Care Transitions Department, the Quality Improvement Department and supported the development of the EUHM Office of Quality team. Additionally, she led clinical performance improvement efforts regarding management of behavioral health patients in the acute care settings, clinical safety workflow integration in the workplace violence strategy, standardization of emergency airway management roles and responsibilities. At EUHM she led the strategic implementation of Lean Management System principles resulting in daily readiness hospital huddles, value stream analysis, and rapid improvement work in the care coordination, perioperative services and emergency department areas.

Dr. Franks is a proud graduate of Spelman College (1995), Morehouse School of Medicine (1999) and the Emory Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program (2002). She is a past chair for the Emergency Medicine Section of the National Medical Association. She is a former member of the Emory Healthcare Board of Trustees and former Co-Chair of the Collaborative Community Outreach and Health Disparities group that has leveraged the expertise across the Emory University Woodruff Health Sciences Center to address COVID-19 disparities and ongoing health equity efforts. For her work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she was awarded the 2021 ML King Community Service Award from Emory University and had been named a finalist for the community service award for the 2021 Health Care Heroes by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. She is also the 2021 recipient of the Emory School of Medicine Distinguished Service Award.

Academic Appointment

  • Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine

Education

Degrees

  • MD from Morehouse School of Medicine
  • BS from Spelman College

Research

Publications

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