CHIRAL Leadership

Sarwat Chaudhry, MD is a board-certified internist who completed her clinical training at the University of Chicago. She came to Yale for the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, and now holds a faculty position as Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of General Medicine. Her work focuses on improving the care and outcomes of hospitalized patients, with a focus on older patients hospitalized for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Chaudhry serves as Director of the Academic Hospitalist Program at Yale. She recently founded the Center for Healthcare Innovation, Redesign, and Learning at Yale. This Center, funded by AHRQ, is studying and improving care transitions into, within, and out of the hospital setting. In March 2019 she was appointed Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect of the Dean’s Faculty Advisory Council.  

Dr. Venkatesh's interest is in the development of performance measures designed to improve emergency department, hospital and health system outcomes. His research focuses on studying variation in emergency physician decision making on hospital admission from the Emergency Department. He is funded by the Emergency Medicine Foundation, the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) Faculty Scholars Program, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study national trends in acute, unscheduled care, the use of observation services, and care transitions. At the Center for Outcomes and Research and Evaluation, Dr. Venkatesh works under contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to develop and maintain hospital-level performance measures and hospital quality rating systems.

Currently Dr. Venkatesh holds a variety of national leadership roles with the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and serves on several technical expert panels for the National Quality Forum (NQF) and the AHRQ. Dr. Venkatesh co-leads the ACEP Emergency Quality Network (E-QUAL) as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative.

Dr. Venkatesh earned his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. He went on to earn an MBA from Ohio State University before completing medical school at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Most recently he completed Emergency Medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program here at Yale University. He is originally from Dayton, OH and resides in New Haven.

As Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Dr. Matouk brings to the CHIRAL team a wealth of knowledge regarding neurosurgical interventions for patients with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage. His expertise has been invaluable to our team’s approach to improving the safety and quality of care transitions for patients transferred to YNHH with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage.

As the Medical Director of the Yale-New Haven Adult Emergency Department, Dr. Parwani brings a deep knowledge and understanding of the operational nuances of navigating patient care transfers via the YNHH Emergency Department. This knowledge has been, and will continue to be a great asset to the CHIRAL team.

Dr. Pham, Medical Director of Y-Access, YNHH’s patient transfer service, brings to the CHIRAL team an invaluable understanding of the process by which patients are transferred from outside hospitals to YNHH. This understanding has been instrumental in the formation of our team’s approach, and will inform our intervention roll-out and evaluation.

With clinical experience in both Emergency Medicine and Surgical Critical Care, Dr. Sather brings a unique blend of clinical expertise to the CHIRAL team. In addition, Dr. Sather’s role as the Director of Quality Improvement within the Emergency Department at Yale New Haven Hospital, a position he has held since 2014, informs our team’s approach to improving the safety and quality of care transitions for patients transferred to YNHH with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage.

Dr. Sheth, the founding Chief of the Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology at Yale New Haven Hospital, brings highly relevant clinical expertise to the CHIRAL team. His research, focused on care of patients with acute neurological injuries, especially those complicated by hemorrhage, has helped to shape our team’s approach to improving the safety and quality of care transitions for patients transferred to YNHH with atraumatic intracranial hemorrhage.

Dr. Ulrich, Professor and the Vice Chair of Operations for the Yale Department of Emergency Medicine, brings to the CHIRAL team a wealth of expertise. In practice for nearly 30 years, Dr. Ulrich is highly respected for his understanding of, and improvements to, the delivery of high-quality care within emergency departments. His knowledge, especially regarding patient process and flow through the ED, is a valuable advantage for the CHIRAL team.