BUFFALO, N.Y. — The new chair of the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo is busy building his resume with two new roles aimed at addressing health inequities in our community.
Dr. Leonard Egede moved to Western New York from Wisconsin this summer to chair at the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine. Now, he's adding the roles of Medical Director of Clinical Research for Kaleida and ECMC and Medical Director for Population Health for Great Lakes Integrated Network IPA.
"I think health systems need to come together because there are going to be areas where someone may be better able to reach that group, and then we need to leverage that expertise and other areas, maybe specialty care, some other group may be better, but at the end of the day, having some kind of integration like conversation around those issues are going to be critical," said Dr. Leonard Egede.
Dr. Egede is recognized around the country for his work to level health disparities. In Milwaukee, his team spent about two years talking to around 350 key players.
"We gathered a lot of information. Most of that will be applicable here, and so when you think about those populations, you're describing where there's really access to transportation, we call them social risks or social needs. Well, the key thing is going to them as opposed to expecting to come to them," said Dr. Leonard Egede.
One of his goals is to specifically look at food insecurity.
"Really looking at how do you deploy programs that provide healthy food to people with chronic disease? What is the best structure used to do that? So we want to be able to partner with some of these agencies that are already doing that work," explained Dr. Leonard Egede.
"Has anything surprised you yet since moving to Buffalo this summer?" asked 2 On Your Side's Kelly Dudzik.
"I think what surprised me is in terms of cohesion across the health systems, right? So Buffalo is relatively small, in a small market, right? So I think it's actually advantageous to work together. And, I think there's some level of fragmentation, and it's not fragmentation from the standpoint of not leveraging all the resources that are available in the community and really being able to use that to go forward, so my goal is to bring some of those partners together and really we can compete, but still work together as a team to get things done," said Dr. Leonard Egede.