Hemal Kanzaria, MD

Hemal Kanzaria, MD, MSc, is the Department of Care Coordination (DoCC) Medical Director at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he holds the Terry A. Patinkin, MD, Endowed Professorship. At ZSFG, he is responsible for leading the design and implementation of care coordination, social services, and utilization management activities. His recent work at ZSFG has included successfully transitioning the DoCC on to EPIC, implementing observation services, reducing the volume of non-acute hospitalized patients, and leading the hospital's post-acute care coordination efforts both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously, he led the implementation of the Emergency Department (ED) information exchange across the SF Department of Public Health and the development of a novel multi-disciplinary Social Medicine team to address patients’ health-related social needs. The ZSFG Social Medicine team was awarded the statewide 2018 Quality Leaders Award through the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems and the 2020 San Francisco Leaders with Heart Award. The team was also instrumental in the SFGH Foundation #IAmTheirPeople campaign, raising millions for individuals with mental illness.

Dr. Kanzaria is a Faculty Advisor at the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative and an Affiliated Faculty at the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies, where his research focuses on patient engagement, health-related social needs, and health care delivery system transformation. He is the Co-Principal Investigator on the evaluation of San Francisco County’s Whole Person Care initiative to improve the health of patients experiencing chronic homelessness. He has published over 70 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles, including in JAMA and Health Affairs, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, SF Chronicle, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio.

A graduate of Brown University, UCSF School of Medicine, and the UCLA School of Public Health, Dr. Kanzaria’s training includes an emergency medicine residency at UCSF/ZSFG. He is an alum of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program and the California Health Care Foundation Leadership Program. Dr. Kanzaria is a practicing emergency physician at UCSF/ZSFG, and lives in San Francisco with his wife, their two daughters and rescue dog.