Don't Just Collect Data, Use It! Transforming Care With Social Drivers of Health Data (ADIEM, AAAEM, and Social EM and Population Health Interest Group Sponsored)

I am an emergency and critical care medicine physician working at the intersection of serious illness and acute care medicine, focused on understanding the underlying social drivers of health and systems barriers for patients and families facing serious illness, and developing and implementing interventions to improve patient-centered outcomes and health equity.

Dr. Samuels-Kalow is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS), an attending physician in emergency medicine and pediatric emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine at MGB. Her work focuses on developing interventions to reduce disparities in emergency care, and designing strategies to use the ED visit to address adverse social determinants of health. Current projects include work to examine the role of individual and hospital factors in quality and equity of care for children in general emergency departments and understanding how to best address unmet oral health and social needs in the ED.

Kimberly Stanford, MD, MPH, is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago and the Director of ED HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Screening at the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE). A nationally recognized expert on screening for syphilis and HIV in the ED, Dr. Stanford is an NIH-funded implementation scientist whose research focuses on leveraging the emergency department visit as a key point of contact with the healthcare system for patients who might otherwise have limited access to care, creating opportunities for critical public health interventions related to infectious and chronic diseases and social determinants of health.

Alejandro Aviña-Cadena MD, MPH (Dr. Aviña, He/Him) is a first-generation Mexican-American physician, born and raised in Los Angeles. He is a current second year Emergency Medicine resident at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and a proud product of the public school system and community college. After he transferred to a 4 year university, he spent the next few years at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) where he received his Bachelors of Science, completed a Post-Bacc program, completed a Masters in Public Health and completed his medical degree as a leader in UCI’s Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC). Dr. Aviña is a first-generation Mexican-American physician and his lived experiences served as a motivation for his work in health equity. In addition to serving as the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) chapter president as a medical student, PRIME-LC president and conducting research on food insecurity and Dr. Aviña spearheaded UCI School of Medicine’s first 4-year longitudinal Social Determinants of Health curriculum where he worked with a number of key stakeholders to incorporate his curriculum into every major educational experience at UCI’s School of Medicine. Now in residency, Dr. Aviña is a co-president for BMC’s Emergency Medicine Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) program in addition to conducting research/quality improvement projects on incorporating a patient’s social context to their plan of care in the ED and has worked on a number of diversity/health equity projects that have promoted program recruitment and resident well-being. Now almost 2 years living in Boston, Dr. Aviña and his wife recently expanded their family and are excited for where the next few years will take them.