HCDI Advisory Committee

Jeffrey Brenner

MD, Primary Care Startup Founder

Dr. Jeffrey Brenner is a primary care physician and primary care startup founder. Most recently, Dr. Brenner was Senior Vice President of Integrated Health and Human Services at UnitedHealthcare Community & State. In this role, Dr. Brenner led myConnections™, UnitedHealthcare’s program to help low-income individuals and families access essential social services that are the gateway to better health. Dr. Brenner is the Founder and former Executive Director of the Camden Coalition the site of the HCDI and NIH-funded study on health care hotspotting. In 2013 Dr. Brenner was honored with the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship for his work and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2014. Brenner received his MD from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1995.

Leora Horwitz

MD, Associate Professor, Departments of Population Health and Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Dr. Leora Horwitz is the Founding Director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science and the Division of Healthcare Delivery Science in the Department of Population Health. The Center for Healthcare Delivery Science runs multiple rapid-cycle randomized quality-improvement projects within the NYU Langone Hospital system. Additionally, she is the principal investigator of the NYU Patient Imaging Quality and Safety Laboratory, the Greater New York City Practice Transformation Network, the Enhancing the Role of Hospitals in Improving Population Health Learning Center, and the Rapid Randomized Controlled Trial Laboratory. Her work has been published in JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, and the British Medical Journal. Dr. Horwitz received her MD from Harvard Medical School in 2000.

Darshak Sangavi

MD

Dr. Darshak Sanghavi was most recently the Chief Medical Officer of UnitedHealthcare's Medicare & Retirement, the largest US commercial Medicare program. Prior to his role at UnitedHealthcare, he served ais the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Translation at OptumLabs, overseeing a diverse portfolio of innovation-directed projects addressing national health priorities including the opioid crisis, health care affordability, artificial intelligence strategies in health, and chronic medical conditions such as dementia and diabetes. Dr. Sanghavi also served the Obama administration as the Director of Preventive and Population Health at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, where he oversaw the development of large pilot programs aimed at improving the nation’s health care costs and quality. Dr. Sanghavi has been a strong partner to HCDI, speaking at HCDI events and contributing a blog post on the pivotal role J-PAL played in inspiring the randomized evaluation of the Million Hearts Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Model. Dr. Sanghavi received his MD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1997.

Christian L. Soura

Executive Vice President, South Carolina Hospital Association

Christian L. Soura is executive vice president at the South Carolina Hospital Association. The South Carolina Hospital Association and its associated foundation are private, not-for-profit organizations representing nearly 100 member hospitals and health systems. Christian was previously director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. During his tenure, J-PAL North America partnered with his office to evaluate the Nurse-Family Partnership and test whether health plan “star ratings” are associated with better health outcomes. Soura was formerly Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor of South Carolina. He also previously served the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as Secretary of Administration, Director of Strategic Services, and Senior Advisor for Recovery Implementation.