Hemal Kanzaria, MD MSc is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Kanzaria practices clinically at Zuckerberg San Francisco General (ZSFG) – the only county hospital and trauma center in San Francisco – and co-directs emergency department (ED) lean improvement efforts. In this role, he is currently leading a multi-disciplinary team to address ED patients’ social determinants of health and avert short-stay hospitalizations. He is also the Director of Complex Care Analytics for the San Francisco Health Network (SFHN), the public health delivery system in San Francisco County. He championed the successful implementation of ED Information Exchange across SFHN, and leads efforts to improve and coordinate care for frequent users of emergent/urgent medical, behavioral, and social services. He oversees both data infrastructure and health system improvements focused on addressing the social and medical needs of vulnerable patients that frequently use acute care services in San Francisco County.

Dr. Kanzaria is also an Affiliated Faculty at the UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS), an Adjunct scientist at RAND Health, and a core member of The Policy Lab for Acute Care Emergencies (The PLACE). His research focuses on patient engagement and health care delivery system transformation. He has received grant funding from multiple organizations including most recently San Francisco Health Plan, the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and the Hellman Fellows Fund. He was recently selected to co-lead the evaluation of San Francisco County’s 5-year $162M Whole Person Care pilot aimed to improve the health of chronically homeless individuals. His work has been published in several high-impact journals including Health Affairs, JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, BMJ, The Lancet, Annals of Emergency Medicine, and Academic Emergency Medicine, and featured in Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Wallstreet Journal, and National Public Radio. Prior to his current appointment, Dr. Kanzaria was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at UCLA. He completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University, and his medical degree and residency at UCSF-SFGH, during which time he founded Remedy at UCSF to recover unused medical supplies for socially responsible redistribution. The organization has provided medical equipment to underserved communities both locally and globally, and has been instrumental in several disaster relief efforts.