Dr. Joseph Ornato is the medical director of the Richmond Ambulance Authority and Richmond Fire and EMS, as well as a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Along with these roles, Ornato has participated in cardiopulmonary resuscitation research and is an Editor of the journal Resuscitation. In the past, Dr. Ornato was a chairman of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) National Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, along with the Advanced Cardiac Life Support Subcommittee, also serving as the AHA’s national representative to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s National Heart Attack Alert Program’s Coordinating Committee and chairman of the Science Base Subcommittee. Dr. Ornato also chaired the National Steering Committee on a public access defibrillation trial along with these committees. With the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, he was a cardiac co-chairman and acted as a principal investigator for VCU on the Neurological Emergency Treatment Trials (NETT) sponsored by the NIH. Dr. Ornato is also the principal investigator on a developing drone-delivered naloxone system, grant-funded by NIH/NIDA.
