2024 Strengthening Essential Emergency Departments Conference

Christian Arbelaez, MD, MPH, is the Chair in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center and BU School of Medicine. Before joining BMC, he was  a physician leader at Brown Emergency Medicine and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. With more than 15 years of senior leadership experience, Dr. Arbelaez has a track record of mentoring and collaborating and built his academic career by helping to create academic programs and projects with multiple academic universities, and international organizations. Over the span of his 20-year professional career, his passion and “Ikigai” has been focused on vulnerable populations in the US and abroad through the development and expansion of programs, mentorship of junior colleagues, and Humanitarian assistance in the Navajo Nation, disaster relief efforts with Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake; and in a post-conflict Colombia with internally displaced communities and Venezuelan migrants. 
Dr. Arbelaez received his MD from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He completed residency training at Brown Emergency Medicine. He earned an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He has completed Executive Education from the Harvard Business School Brigham Physician Leadership program at Harvard Business School and the Hispanic Mid-Career Executive Leadership Fellowship from the NHMA/NYU Wagner School of Public Service Leadership Center.

Dr. Alastair Bell oversees the comprehensive system strategy and operations of BMCHS' entities, including BMC, Boston Accountable Care Organization, Clearway Health, and the WellSense Health Plan.

Prior to joining in 2012, Dr. Bell was a leader in the North American payor and provider practice at McKinsey and Company, advising a range of national and international healthcare organizations and leading large-scale transformation programs. He received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Oxford, his Master of Arts in physiology from the University of Cambridge, and his Master of Business Administration with distinction from Harvard Business School. Dr. Bell currently serves as co-chair of the board for the Boston Children’s Chorus.

Watch Dr. Alastair Bell talk about his vision for BMC and the future of healthcare:

Sandro Galea, a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He previously held academic and leadership positions at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature and is a regular contributor to a range of public media, about the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma. He has been listed as one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He is the current Chair of the Boston Public Health Commission Board of Health, past chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Galea has received several lifetime achievement awards. Galea holds a medical degree from the University of Toronto, graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow.

William Gordon, MD, MBI, FAMIA is a Physician, Informaticist, and Senior Advisor for Data and Technology at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS. In this role, he supports and lead the center's initiatives around data and technology. Dr. Gordon is a national leader in digital health, clinical informatics, and interoperability and has done extensive operational and academic work in this space. Dr. Gordon previously had technology and informatics leadership roles at the Mass General Brigham healthcare system in Boston Massachusetts. He is currently a staff physician at Brigham and Women's hospital and faculty in Harvard Medical School's Department of Biomedical Informatics.

Dr. Anthony (Tony) Hollenberg oversees strategic leadership across the academic medical center as BMC models a new kind of excellence in healthcare where clinical and operational innovation meets health equity and access. 

Before being appointed to this role in 2024, Dr. Hollenberg served as physician-in-chief at Boston Medical Center and the John Wade Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. He has also spent 30-plus years assuming progressive leadership positions in academic medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital, before spending four years as the chair and chief of the Department of Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. Dr. Hollenberg is a nationally recognized physician-scientist who specializes in endocrinology. His work has focused on thyroid disorders and investigating the physiological and molecular mechanisms by which thyroid hormones regulate metabolism, including body weight, as well as thyroid gland development. 

Dr. Hollenberg received a medical degree from University of Calgary, and he completed his residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, followed by a clinical and research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Hollenberg received a Bachelor of Arts in biochemical sciences from Harvard College. He currently serves as treasurer of the American Thyroid Association and the Association for Professors of Medicine.

Dr. Susan Nedza, is a physician executive who assists hospitals, and specialty societies in examining and responding to changes in health policy. 

She served in various roles across the healthcare industry including as a Regional Chief Medical Officer at CMS, Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety at the American Medical Association and most recently as a data scientist at Michael Pine Associate. In that role,  she served as the principal investigator in the studies that support the Acute Unscheduled Care Model for emergency services.  Most recently, she served as Chair of the Technical Expert Panel in the development  of an EM cost measure for inclusion in the 2024 MIPS  program. 

Dr. Nedza was the 2021 recipient of ACEP’s Colin Rorrie Award for Excellence in Health Policy. 

Rob Nelb, MPH is the new director of policy for America's Essential Hospitals, which is the leading association and champion for hospitals dedicated to equitable, high-quality care for all, including those who face social and financial barriers to care. Previously he was a principal analyst at the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) and a project officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). He graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor's in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a Masters in Public Health.

Dr. Pilgrim is the Enterprise Chief Medical Officer for SCP Health. An emergency physician for over 30 years, he has served in many leadership roles including four terms as Chair of EDPMA’s Board of Directors. He regularly advocates for state and federal health policy issues that affect the future of emergency care, including ACEP’s first-ever Value-based model (The Acute Unscheduled Care Model).

He has co-chaired ACEP’s Task Force on Alternative Payment Models and currently chairs EDPMA’s Federal Health Policy Committee. Dr. Pilgrim has lectured with the IOM's dissemination workshop series, "Hospital-Based Emergency Care, At the Breaking Point".  He has been honored as an ACEP Speaker of the year, and Becker’s recently named Dr. Pilgrim one of the "130 Hospital and Health System CMO’s To Know".  He lives and works in Lafayette, Louisiana.  

Dr. William Schpero is a health economist and an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Economics of the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He is also Co-Associate Director at the Cornell Center for Health Equity.

Dr. Schpero studies Medicaid and the health care safety net in the United States. Through his research, he aims to identify policy levers to address racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health and health care. His research has appeared in a number of academic journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs. It has been featured by Bloomberg, CNBC, Politico, The Washington Post, and other news outlets.

Dr. Schpero received his Ph.D. in health policy and economics from Yale University. He received a master’s and undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College. 

Dr. Lara Terry brings 20+ years of experience working in large integrated healthcare systems, venture-backed companies, and academic medicine to her current role as Chief of Value Based Care at Boston Medical Center Health System. In this role, she addresses opportunities to improve clinical care delivery and risk contract performance using a data driven approach.

Prior to this role, Dr. Terry held leadership roles at Atrius Health in Population Health and Mass General Brigham in Medical Analytics and Informatics.

Earlier in her career, Dr. Terry worked in industry and, before that, academic research. She has over 25 publications and is a Paul B. Beeson Scholar, a national honor given to leaders in aging research.

She received degrees from Tufts University (BS), Harvard University (MPH) and UMDNJ (MD). She is board certified in internal medicine and geriatrics and maintains a clinical practice caring for patients with cognitive decline. 

Congresswoman Lori Trahan proudly represents Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District, made up of 35 cities and towns including her hometown of Lowell. She was first introduced to public service as a college student in Washington, D.C. After college, she joined former Congressman Marty Meehan’s staff, working her way up to Chief of Staff. She deeply enjoyed working to serve people across Massachusetts, but she also witnessed firsthand the increasing partisanship that served wealthy special interests instead of families like the one she grew up in.

Lori decided to run for Congress in 2018 because she wanted to expand economic opportunities for working families in Massachusetts. Now, as a member of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Lori is an advocate for Third District residents – working to expand access to affordable, quality health care, end the addiction crisis, rebuild our infrastructure, tackle climate change, protect kids online, and more.

Louise Keogh Weed is an Instructor in the Department of Health Management at the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and is Affiliate Faculty at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care. Prior to working at HSPH and HMS, Louise worked in Integrated Clinical Primary Care settings in Safety Net and Community Health Systems. She also currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Service Alliance, and serves on the Board for The Farm School Foundation. Louise bases all of her work on the idea that success in mission-driven organizations lives in the space where mission, justice, leadership, and strategy overlap. Louise holds a Bachelor’s in Women’s Studies from Tufts University and a Master’s in Public Health in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health.

Brian J. Yun, MD, MBA, MPH serves as the Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center. In this role, he oversees the clinical operations of the emergency department. Prior to this role, he was the Director of Clinical Operations of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Emergency Department and a Physician Advisor to MGH Case Management. His areas of expertise include improving processes, implementing alternative care pathways, and evaluating utilization of ED resources. Dr. Yun graduated with an MD and an MBA from Tufts University School of Medicine, where he was also named to the AOA Honor Society. He has an MPH from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After finishing his residency in emergency medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency, Dr. Yun completed an ED Administration Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.