Craig Weinert, MD, MPH

Dr. Craig Weinert has been in the PACCS division for 25 years starting as a P/CC fellow in 1994 and completing MPH training in 1998 focusing on ICU research. His research on post-ICU mental health outcomes was supported by the Division’s ARDS SCOR grant followed by a K-23 from NIMH. He then developed a research team from the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy to study patient-controlled sedation during mechanical ventilation. This work has been supported by R-series grants from NINR and NHLBI including an ongoing RCT at 4 hospital sites including Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Dr. Weinert has served in several capacities in critical care and QI administration at the University of Minnesota Medical Center and M Health-Fairview. In 2010, along with Drs. Greg Beilman and David Ingbar he started a multi-Departmental critical care program that now supports approximately 40 intensivist physicians and 8 APPs from the Medicine, Anesthesiology and Surgery Departments, covering ~ 100 ICU beds (3 hospitals on-site and 6 tele-ICU hospitals). He also has led non-ICU QI projects/programs at UMMC including the RRT program, mortality review, Open Notes at UMMC and the system-wide sepsis program. Returning to his public health roots, he now leads a statewide sepsis initiative as chair of the Minnesota Hospital Association Sepsis committee. 

• Presidential Citation Award, Society of Critical Care Medicine (2012, 2013)
• University of Minnesota Medical Center Medical Staff Award for Clinical Care (2011)

• Society of Critical Care Medicine, American Thoracic Society

• Sedation of patients requiring mechanical ventilation
• Post-ICU outcomes including psychiatric symptoms
• Physician-patient communication
• Tele-ICU systems

Research Projects

• Randomized trials of patient-controlled sedation
• Recovery from critical illness
• Tele-ICU patient management
• Hospitalized patients’ interpretation of physician progress notes

• Experts@Minnesota
• PubMed