NIH HEAL Initiative

Dr. Venkatesh is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale University. He is also Scientist at the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. He has been funded by the NIH, AHRQ, and the Emergency Medicine Foundation to study health system outcomes and efficiency, and he is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as co-Principal Investigator of the Emergency Quality Network (E-QUAL) and for the development of the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. He has received over $6 million in grant funding and published over 80 peer-reviewed papers and is senior editor of The Evidence book series. He is national leader within ACEP and SAEM and he serves on expert panels for the National Quality Forum (NQF), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and CMS. His work is also funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Addiction Policy Forum to advance the quality and delivery of emergency and acute care for opioid use disorder. 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.

Kathryn Hawk, MD, MHS is an attending physician in the Yale New Haven Hospital Emergency Department and an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, the Yale School of Public Health and the Program in Addiction Medicine. She was a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) K12 sponsored Drug use, Addiction and HIV Research (DAHRS) Scholar, and is board certified in emergency and addiction medicine. She completed her residency training and research fellowship in the Yale University Department of Emergency Medicine. Her research primarily focuses on the design, testing and implementation of evidence based-care for ED patients with substance use disorders, with an emphasis on initiating medications for opioid and alcohol use disorder in the ED and maximizing effective linkage to ongoing treatment using innovative strategies. Her research on quality improvement and reducing opioid-associated mortality through data linkages, implementation-facilitation ED-initiated buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, initiating treatment for alcohol use disorder in the ED and the dissemination of evidence-based best practices for care of patients with addiction has been funded by NIDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF), Foundation for Opioid Response (FORE), and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

Caitlin received her Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology from the Boston University School of Public Health and her Bachelor of Science in Health Policy and Management from Providence College. Caitlin has more than 15 years of experience in clinical trials management and public health programming at Yale School of Medicine and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Andrew Taylor MD, MHS is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, Emergency Medicine, and Biostatistics at Yale, where he founded and leads the Yale Interdisciplinary AI & Medicine Lab (Y-IAML). Y-IAML is a pioneering collaborative research group dedicated to advancing the field of AI in Medicine through a unique cross-disciplinary approach focused on harmoniously blending AI with healthcare delivery. Y-IAML brings together experts in design, cognitive science, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, implementation science, ethics/philosophy, and decision theory to develop innovative AI solutions that are not only technically robust but also ethically informed and practically implementable. By bridging the gap between diverse fields of study, Dr. Taylor and his team aim to create AI technologies that are deeply attuned to the complexities of healthcare, focusing on patient-centered outcomes and transformative healthcare solutions. Dr. Taylor's goal is to lead the way in interdisciplinary AI research, fostering a new era of healthcare innovation that is inclusive, effective, and profoundly impactful. Dr. Taylor's work is generously supported by a diverse group of funding agencies including multiple NIH Institutes (NIDA, NIA, NIMDH, NLM), AHRQ, SIDM, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as well as industry partnerships. Dr. Taylor earned his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Mississippi. He completed medical school at Emory University School of Medicine and Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Connecticut. Most recently he completed fellowships in point-of-care ultrasound and Masters in Health Science with an informatics focus from Yale University. He lives in Durham with his wife and four kids.