In partnership with the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), Kaiser Permanente co-hosted a webinar for leaders in health care, public health, and research. During this session, USICH—which sets federal homelessness strategy—discussed its recent guidance, “How Health Systems and Hospitals Can Help Solve Homelessness,” outlining effective strategies for compassionate and collaborative care for people without safe, stable housing. In this one-hour webinar, we covered:
● Why health systems and hospitals are vital for ending homelessness
● The financial benefits for health systems and hospitals
● How providers are implementing USICH’s guidance in communities
Please watch a recording of the program below.
Joy C. Liu is a physician and public health practitioner with experience working to improve health equity locally, nationally, and globally. She has a focus on patients with serious illness, public policy, and health communication. Her work has been featured in ABC News, Good Morning America, and The Lancet Global Health.
Dr. Bechara Choucair is the executive vice president and chief health officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading integrated health systems with more than 12.5 million members. His work includes the creation of the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of Kaiser Permanente’s members. He also manages the organization’s community health portfolio, including $3.4 billion dedicated to supporting medical financial assistance and charitable care as well as grants and community health initiatives.
From January through November 2021, Dr. Choucair served as the White House national COVID-19 vaccinations coordinator. In that role he focused on coordinating the timely, safe, and equitable administration of COVID-19 vaccinations for the U.S. population. During his tenure, more than 450 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationwide. He returned to Kaiser Permanente in December 2021. Dr. Choucair served as Chicago’s Public Health Commissioner from 2009 to 2014.
Among other accolades, Dr. Choucair has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 50 Most Influential Health Executives in the U.S., one of the Most Influential People in Healthcare, and as one of the Top 25 Innovators in Healthcare. A family physician by training, he completed his Family Practice Residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He holds an MD from the American University of Beirut and a master’s degree in health care management from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Dr. Sonali Saluja is the Vice President of Population Health and Medical Director at Healthcare in Action, an organization that provides wholistic care (medical care, social support and housing navigation) to unhoused persons in California. She leads population health, quality improvement and research and evaluation efforts and oversees clinical teams. She is a board-certified internal medicine physician with a background in health services research and medical education. Dr. Saluja previously served as the Director of the Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science and Innovation at USC’s Keck School of Medicine where she was an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine. She also worked as an attending physician at Los Angeles General Medical Center. Dr. Saluja attended medical school at the University of Wisconsin and completed her residency at Providence Portland Medical Center. She completed a fellowship in general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and concurrently received her master’s in public health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Joe Savage is a recognized leader with over 15 years of experience in the fields of homelessness, social policy, economic development, and human services administration. His passion for this work has cultivated years of skills and expertise that have helped bring over $150 million of funding to support housing and services for the homeless and community development projects. Joe’s commitment to this work is rooted in his belief in the dignity of human life. He has a Ph.D. in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware.
Richard Bryce D.O. is a family physician and chief medical officer at the Community Health and Social Services Center (CHASS), a federally qualified health center, in Mexicantown, Detroit, MI. He also is the Henry Ford Hospital Family Medicine Residency program director. His passion is to promote and motivate his patients to pursue a healthy lifestyle. He started the CHASS Mexicantown 5k Run/Walk and Children's race to improve exposure to exercise within the Detroit community. He has also been instrumental in facilitating the Fresh Prescription program at the CHASS Center and Henry Ford Hospital, where he and other providers prescribe fresh fruits and vegetables to their patients from the clinic-based farmers market with the goal of increasing consumption of these foods. Richard also initiated
CHASS's Reach Out and Read partnership, which provides pediatric patients with a free book at each well-child visit. Dr. Bryce provides the best care possible for those most vulnerable in our society. He uses medication assisted treatment to help those suffering from opioid addiction. He is the Medical Director for Street Medicine Detroit and Detroit Street Care, student organizations affiliated with Wayne State University School of Medicine and Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine respectively. These programs provide medical care to Detroit’s homeless population. Dr. Bryce is clinical faculty at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Wayne State University School of Medicine and the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Bryce hopes to exemplify his care for those underserved to the next generation of physicians.
Board certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine, Devora has spent over a decade providing primary care and addiction medicine services to individuals experiencing homelessness in interdisciplinary settings ranging from traditional four-wall clinics and hospital-based settings to Medical Respite, PSH based care, street medicine, and sobering centers. Devora's areas of focus include healthcare for the PEH population, harm reduction, transitions of care across service levels, recuperative care, the care of older adults experiencing homelessness, and quality improvement for HCH clinical sites. In addition to her time at the Council, Devora provides clinical care to individuals experiencing homelessness and those with substance use disorders at a Bridge Clinic based in Philadelphia, PA.
Bethany Hamilton is the co-Director of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership (NCMLP) at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.
Hamilton has spent her career working at the intersection of health equity and social justice. She most recently served as Deputy Director, State Affairs at the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), where she led projects focused on expanding Medicaid, defending the Affordable Care Act, and strengthening the ability of community health centers to carry out their mission.
She advanced health care workforce development initiatives as part of NACHC’s Community HealthCorps Program, and began her career as an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow at Legal Assistance of Western NY, where she built a re-entry law clinic and co-managed a law student summer associate program. As a former member of NCMLP’s Advisory Council from 2014-2019, she served as a bridge between the two sectors and was part of the team that oversaw NCMLP’s transition to become a federally-funded technical assistance hub for health centers.
Hamilton has worked in every policy environment across the country – from local to federal, red to blue, rural to urban. She has a unique understanding of healthcare and legal services operations, and the challenges and opportunities inherent in each. She sees medical-legal partnership and NCMLP as a vehicle to help dismantle the systemic inequities that have hindered our progress as a country and threaten to further divide us. Hamilton is dedicated to leveraging her knowledge,
leadership, and savvy to accelerate opportunities to improve the systems and policies that most affect health and well-being.
Hamilton earned her Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Miami and a Juris Doctor with a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Health Law and Policy from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
Hamilton’s top five quotes: “Make it happen.” “Challenge accepted.” “Fix your face.” “I’ve got a
song for this.” “You’ve got this!”
