Dr. Geiger 2022 Award: Awardee and Nominees
Awardee
Warria Esmond, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Settlement Health
Dr. Warria Esmond has served as the Chief Medical Officer of Settlement Health since 2004. As an FQHC in East Harlem, Settlement Health is proud of its long term commitment to culturally sensitive, high-quality care. As Chief Medical Officer, in addition to managing programs that benefit the patients of the center, Dr. Esmond continues to lead the team working on transforming clinical care in a patient centric, team based model. Her accomplishments include EMR implementation, Joint Commission accreditation and Patient Centered Medical Home recognition. Development of an organizational data strategy is at the core of Settlement Health’s transformation efforts. Dr. Esmond serves on various CHCANYS Committees and the NACHC Clinical Committee. As a part of her work with Community Based Participatory Research, she was invited to the White House for a discussion on research in underserved communities.
Recognized for her exemplary leadership, advocacy, and dedication at her health center and among her peers, Dr. Esmond is an inspiring mentor to students considering a career in health care for underserved populations and to colleagues who are new to FQHCs. She is a champion for community health centers at the state and national levels. As CHCANYS’ Clinical Committee Chair for the last ten years, Dr. Esmond is commended for her contributions to the committee’s growth. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked with CHCANYS’ staff leading weekly Clinical Committee meetings for updates on the pandemic and a discussion forum for identifying health center needs across the state. These calls, attended by over 90 providers on average, were instrumental in helping CHCANYS address the needs of health centers.
Dr. Esmond is a graduate of Cornell University and Cornell University Medical College, (now known as the Weill Medical College of Cornell University). She completed an OB/GYN residency at The Brookdale Hospital Medical Center.
2022 Nominees:
William Borgos, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Hudson Headwater Health Network
Dr. William Borgos is known for his dedication to Hudson Headwater’s providers, nurses, staff, patients, and community. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, having received his M.D. in 1995, he returned to the community where he grew up to practice family medicine. As a local, he is noted for his incredible understanding of the needs of his patients and the unique challenges of providing care in the vast, rural, and geographically isolated regions of New York’s Adirondacks and North Country.
Dr. Borgos became Hudson Headwater’s Chief Medical Officer just before the COVID-19 pandemic and took on the role of leading the local emergency response working closely with public health officials and medical directors across the Capital Region, Adirondacks, and North Country; while continuing to see patients and the opening of new facilities, a new mobile health unit and the transition to a new team-based model of care at Hudson Headwater’s largest health center location.
Through tireless advocacy, Dr. Borgos was instrumental in getting the state to open government-run testing and vaccination sites in Warren and Clinton Counties, helping to secure a supply of federally supplied, monoclonal antibodies to treat the seriously ill, and guiding efforts to distribute free at-home test kits and N95 masks. He has appeared on local tv and radio programs to offer insight and guidance throughout the pandemic.
Viju Jacob, M.D., Assistant VP of Medical, Regulatory, and External Affairs, Urban Health Plan
For more than eighteen years, Dr. Viju Jacob has been a highly trusted and respected member of the clinical leadership at Urban Health Plan. The communities that Urban Health Plan serves were hit hard by Covid, particularly Corona, Queens, which was the epicenter of the pandemic in early 2020, and the South Bronx which soon followed. With little known about the virus then, Urban Health Plan set up a daily call for all teams involved in the Covid response. Dr. Jacob kept everyone abreast of the latest developments from city, state, and federal agencies and was involved in critical decision-making, which impacted both patients and staff. When Urban Health Plan became a state-testing location, Dr. Jacob frequently got late-night calls from police or military officials from around the country when coordinating deliveries of supplies. He was responsible for ordering vaccines, monitoring our current supply, and provided weekly Covid data updates from the city and state health departments to Urban Health Plan’s clinicians and associates.
Recognizing the disparate way Covid was impacting the Bronx and Queens, he became the leading voice in the community on the importance of equitable testing, vaccine distribution and access, Dr. Jacob led the effort to bring vaccine education to Corona as well as the South Bronx, partnering with churches and community-based organizations to dispel myths and establish vaccination events and clinics. Thanks to these efforts, Corona became a model for vaccine compliance and adherence with upwards of 85% of eligible residents choosing to get vaccinated. His coordination of Covid vaccines and testing also contributed to Urban Health Plan having the distinction of ranking among the highest of NYS Health Centers in volume of vaccines administered on a weekly basis, and highest number of vaccines reported since December 2020. Just recently he was a panelist on Bronx Talk, where he was joined by Dr. Torian Easterling, First Deputy Commissioner and Chief Equity Officer, New York City Department of Health and Assemblywoman Karines Reyes to talk about how the Bronx is dealing with the Omicron variant, COVID hotspots, health care legislation, vaccine, testing, and what to do if you’re sick.
Qiuqu Zhao, M.D., Medical Director, Family Health Centers at NYU Langone
For seventeen years, Dr. Qiuqu Zhao has been the embodiment of a physician who works tirelessly to help patients in the Sunset Park Chinese community in Brooklyn. Traveling four hours daily, she is a devoted family medicine provider who treats the whole family and knows the community very well. During the peak of the pandemic in 2020, she proactively volunteered to work on the front lines at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.
Dr. Zhao is a clinical champion for the Healthy Steps, Hepatitis B grant administered by the Department of Health and many more research initiatives.
Board certified in family medicine, she has a Ph.D. and M.D. from Zhejiang Medical University. She is also an Adjunct Instructor for the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.