Tribute to Excellence Journal 2022 - Flipbook - Page 14
Guest Speaker
DAVE A. CHOKSHI, MD, MSC, FACP
Dave A. Chokshi was the 43rd Commissioner at the New
York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, one
of the leading health agencies in the world. He led the
City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including
its historic campaign to vaccinate over 6 million New
Yorkers, saving tens of thousands of lives. Dr. Chokshi
designed treatment strategies, navigated school and
economic reopenings, and served as principal public spokesperson. Under
his tenure, the Health Department’s budget grew to its highest-ever level,
reflecting investment in signature initiatives such as the Public Health Corps,
Pandemic Response Institute, and New Family Home Visiting program. In
2021, the Department also stewarded the launch of the nation’s first publicly
authorized overdose prevention centers—as well as a landmark Board of
Health resolution on racism as a public health crisis.
From 2014 until 2020, Dr. Chokshi served in leadership roles at NYC Health +
Hospitals (H+H), including as its inaugural Chief Population Health Officer. He
was also Chief Executive Officer of the H+H Accountable Care Organization,
one of the few ACOs in the nation to achieve high quality and cost performance
for eight consecutive years. He has been a practicing primary care internist at
Bellevue Hospital since 2014 and is also Clinical Professor of Population Health
at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Previously, Dr. Chokshi served as a White House Fellow at the U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs, where he was the principal health advisor in the Office
of the Secretary. Dr. Chokshi has written on medicine and public health in The
New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet, Health Affairs, Science,
The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, and Scientific American. In 2016,
President Obama appointed him to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health
Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.
He trained in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, where he
received the Dunne Award for Compassionate Care, and was a clinical fellow at
Harvard Medical School. During his training, he did clinical work in Guatemala,
Peru, Botswana, Ghana, and India. He received his MD with Alpha Omega
Alpha distinction from the University of Pennsylvania and an MSc in global
public health as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and graduated summa cum laude
from Duke University.
United Hospital Fund | Tribute to Excellence in Health Care