STARS Team
Christopher Moriates MD
Chris Moriates MD is the Executive Director for Costs of Care. He is also a practicing hospital medicine physician, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Education, and the Assistant Dean for Healthcare Value at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Moriates leads the STARS program in the U.S. and co-chairs the Choosing Wisely International Consortium Medical Education group. He creates educational resources with international reach, such as the book Understanding Value-Based Healthcare (McGraw-Hill, 2015), the Dell Med Discovering Value-Based Health Care interactive learning modules, and many other programs.
Christopher Moriates MD
Executive Director
Chris Moriates MD is the Executive Director for Costs of Care. He is also a practicing
hospital medicine physician, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical
Education, and the Assistant Dean for Healthcare Value at Dell Medical School at The
University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Moriates leads the STARS program in the U.S. and
co-chairs the Choosing Wisely International Consortium Medical Education group. He
creates educational resources with international reach, such as the book Understanding
Value-Based Healthcare (McGraw-Hill, 2015), the Dell Med Discovering Value-Based
Health Care interactive learning modules, and many other programs.
Bryana Banashefski
Bryana Banashefski is an MD student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Bryana joined Mount Sinai's Student High Value Care Initiative as a Student Lead during her first year of medical school. Through this initiative, she was connected with the STARS program and participated in the Choosing Wisely STARS Program in 2021, allowing her to connect with like-minded medical students nationally. Through connections made at the STARS conference, Bryana began developing quality improvement tools and resources focused on empowering students to implement high value care initiatives at their schools. These projects ultimately led her to take on the role of STARS National Resource Development Lead. Bryana has participated in two Choosing Wisely panel discussions and enjoys speaking with younger students interested in incorporating quality improvement into their careers.
Bryana Banashefski, MS4
National Resource Development Lead
Bryana Banashefski is an MD
student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Bryana joined
Mount Sinai’s Student High Value Care Initiative as a Student Lead during her first year
of medical school. Through this initiative, she was connected with the STARS program
and participated in the Choosing Wisely STARS Program in 2021, allowing her to
connect with like-minded medical students nationally. Through connections made at the
STARS conference, Bryana began developing quality improvement tools and resources
focused on empowering students to implement high value care initiatives at their
schools. These projects ultimately led her to take on the role of STARS National
Resource Development Lead. Bryana has participated in two Choosing Wisely panel
discussions and enjoys speaking with younger students interested in incorporating
quality improvement into their careers.
Ben Dralle
Benjamin Dralle is an MD student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He participated in the Choosing Wisely STARS program in 2020 and joined the Costs of Care team in January 2021 as the Social Media Manager. Mr. Dralle’s teaching and research efforts are focused on high value care education for pre-clinical medical students, as well as the utilization of social media platforms for promoting high value care and affordability initiatives. He previously led a high value care Twitter chat for medical students and other health professionals, and he currently serves as a peer coach for Ohio State medical students participating in the STARS program.
Benjamin Dralle, MD
Resident Physician Advisor
Benjamin Dralle is an MD student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He participated in the Choosing Wisely STARS program in 2020 and joined the Costs of Care team in January 2021 as the Social Media Manager. Mr. Dralle’s teaching and research efforts are focused on high value care education for pre-clinical medical students, as well as the utilization of social media platforms for promoting high value care and affordability initiatives. He previously led a high value care Twitter chat for medical students and other health professionals, and he currently serves as a peer coach for Ohio State medical students participating in the STARS program.
September Wallingford RN, MSN
Ms. Wallingford is the Deputy Director for Costs of Care. She leads and supports multiple grants and subcontracts from various organizations, as well as develops partnerships with leading healthcare organizations such as The Leapfrog Group, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Ms. Wallingford is a practicing medical/surgical oncology nurse at a large academic medical center in Boston, Massachusetts, and has brought significant interprofessional insights to the Costs of Care team.
September Wallingford RN, MSN
Deputy Director
Ms. Wallingford is the Deputy Director for Costs of Care. She leads and supports multiple grants and subcontracts from various organizations, as well as develops partnerships with leading healthcare organizations such as The Leapfrog Group, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Ms. Wallingford is a practicing medical/surgical oncology nurse at a large academic medical center in Boston, Massachusetts, and has brought significant interprofessional insights to the Costs of Care team.
Chris Petrilli, MD
Christopher Petrilli is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He serves as Clinical Lead of the Manhattan Campus for Value Based Management and Medical Director for Clinical Documentation Improvement for NYU Langone Health. He also serves as a national director for the High Value Practice Academic Alliance. He has published over 30-peer reviewed papers, including one of the first and largest studies identifying COVID-19 risk factors in BMJ.
STARS Advisory Board
Micah Prochaska, MD (co-chair)
University of Chicago
Dr. Prochaska is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He is a clinical investigator and hospitalist clinician, and is supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to study how red blood cell (RBC) transfusion for hospitalized patients with anemia affects their fatigue, activity, and fatigability levels after they have been discharged from the hospital. Dr. Prochaska is also the Associate Director and Co-Investigator of the University of Chicago Hospitalist Project research infrastructure, the University of Chicago Translational Medicine Program (CTMP), and the Cultivating Health & Aging Researchers by Integrating Science, Medicine, & Aging (CHARISMA) Program, which all train undergraduate students in clinical and translational research. Dr. Prochaska is an Associate Director of the MacLean center for Clinical and Medical Ethics and a Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation Scholar at the University of Chicago, and the Course Director for the Pritzker School of Medicine 1st year course Introduction to Medical Evidence. Dr. Prochaska is also an elected member of the AABB Patient Blood Management and Clinical Transfusion Medicine guidelines committees, Chair of the Scientific Committee for the Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management (SABM), and a member of the research committee at the Society for Hospital Medicine (SHM).
Karen Born,
PhD
University of Toronto
Karen Born is an assistant professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She is interim program director for the Master of Health Science in Health Administration and teaches on knowledge translation, qualitative research methods, quality improvement, value and sustainability. She served as Knowledge Translation Lead for the Choosing Wisely Canada campaign from 2015-2022. In that capacity, she was responsible for the dissemination of campaign content to patients and the public and the integration of Choosing Wisely Canada into medical education.
Anne Smeraglio,
MD
Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)
Dr. Smeraglio attended Oregon Health & Science University for medical school then completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University where she co-launched a hospitalist track at Stanford in 2015, while still a resident, called SHAPE (Stanford Hospitalist Advanced Practice & Education). In 2016, she joined the Division of Hospital Medicine at Portland Veterans Hospital. Since returning to Portland, Dr. Smeraglio has served as a clinical teacher/attending physician for medical students and residents on the Portland VA acute care wards. She is the director for Health Systems Science for OHSU’s internal medicine residency program and runs a year-long longitudinal curriculum called Teaching Improvement Science (TIS) for the internal medicine residents. She has also served as OHSU’s STARS site director since 2018. She has research interest in the cross-section of education and health system sciences. Specifically, how to engage trainees in using improvement science to provide better, more affordable, more equitable and safer care for our patients.
Paul Weber,
MD, MBA
Rutgers University
Dr. Paul Weber’s healthcare career spans nearly four decades. He is presently Associate Dean-Continuing Medical Education at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson (RWJMS) and New Jersey Medical Schools (NJMS). He also is an American Medical Association (AMA) Health Systems Science (HSS) Academy Co-Mentor & 2020 Scholar. Dr. Weber is the Thread Director of the HSS UME Curriculum at Rutgers RWJMS and Course Co-Director for Physicianship I and Patient-Centered Medicine (PCM) 2 & 3. He serves as the Program Director, Distinction in Medical Innovation and Entrepreneurship (DiMIE), Course Director for the Financial Literacy, Managed Care, Healthcare Policy & Emergency Preparedness, and Biomedical Entrepreneurship Network (BEN) electives, and Faculty Advisor for the BEN and Choosing Wisely Student Interest Groups at RWJMS.
Maggie Carey, MD
University of
Vermont
Maggie Carey is a fourth-year MD student at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. After participating in the Choosing Wisely STARS program in 2019, she joined the Costs of Care team as the Student Engagement Mentor. In this role, she provides mentorship and advisement to students participating in the STARS program at medical schools across the United States and abroad. Ms. Carey has designed and implemented novel curricular approaches to facilitate the introduction of high value care principles in undergraduate medical education. Her work has been featured in the Choosing Wisely Newsletter, and she is frequently invited to speak to medical students and resident physicians about patient safety, quality improvement, and high value care.
Hope Schwartz, MD
University of California - San Francisco (UCSF)
Hope Schwartz is a 4th year medical student at UCSF applying into emergency medicine. Her passion for increasing access and affordability in the US health care system stems from her undergraduate economics background and work in health care administration prior to medical school. As a STARS Ambassador at UCSF, she has worked with medical education leadership to create and implement a longitudinal high value care curriculum for preclinical medical students. She previously served as a co-leader of the multidisciplinary High Value Care and Health Policy Interest Groups.
Shivani Jain, MS4
Louisiana State
University (LSU)
Shivani Jain is completing her M.D. training at LSUHSC-NO SOM and has previously completed graduate training in medical genetics, epidemiology, and global health. She is her medical school’s STARS Fellow and working with another Fellow to develop a simple innovation to improve health literacy at the point of care that will also increase medical adherence and transparency. In addition, Shivani is working with STARS Fellows at Dell Medical School to author a case for the “Anatomy of A Medical Bill” project. She is involved with the honors research program, honors council, interprofessional education scholars program, the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, and health advocacy and service organizations at her school as well as in her community. She is passionate about improving value of patient care, transparency in medicine, and the state of waste in health care systems.
Nirja Shah, MS4
University of
Florida
Nirja Shah is an MD student at the University of Florida College of Medicine. Since her participation in the Choosing Wisely STARS program in 2021, she has focused on promoting high value care in medical education. She holds an executive board position in Student Alliance for Value Education (SAVE), a national medical-student driven initiative that provides over 1000 medical students with access to high value care education and resources. At her medical school, she worked with colleagues, clerkship directors, and social workers to develop community resource guides for medical students to utilize during their clinical rotations, in order to better address barriers of care for patients with high social needs. She also co-founded the High Value Care Case Competition in partnership with the University of Florida Equal Access Clinic, one of the largest student-run free health care clinics in the nation.
Clerkship Task Force Members
Hannah Bassett, MD - Pediatric Hospitalist
Co-Chair and Costs of Care Director
Stanford University
Dr. Hannah Bassett is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and a pediatric hospitalist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH). She is the co-director of the Packard Clinical Pathway Program and the Physician Lead for Acute Care in the Clinical Effectiveness Program at LPCH. Her institutional work focuses on decreasing unnecessary variation in clinical care, promoting high value care at the bedside, and making it easier for clinical teams to “do the right thing, for the right patient, at the right time.” Her research focuses on patient- and family-centered healthcare cost transparency and better understanding the financial impact of acute care.
Allison Heacock, MD - Pediatric Hospitalist
Co-Chair and Faculty Mentor
The Ohio State University
Allison Heacock, MD, is an assistant professor of clinical internal medicine and pediatrics in the section of Hospital Pediatrics. When not providing hospital based pediatrics and adult care, she focuses on improving the quality, patient safety and resources utilization in the health systems for which she works. Dr. Heacock oversees the systems based practice education to the medical students at Ohio State University. Lastly, she is passionate about caring for patients admitted with failure to thrive and serves as a physician lead for the Failure to Thrive Pathway.
Michelle Chen, MS4 - Student Lead
University of California – San Diego
Michelle Chen is in her fourth year at the UCSD School of Medicine and one of the 2021 Choosing Wisely STARS. She has a background in public health, having received her master’s of public health in health policy and management. She also previously worked in health services research at the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education as a research coordinator. Michelle is passionate about improving health care value and educating future clinicians about research stewardship. She served as the 2022-2023 Value Based Health Care Fellow at Dell Medical School’s Musculoskeletal Institute in Austin, TX during her gap year.
Shivani Jain, MS4 - Member
LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans
Shivani Jain is completing her M.D. training at LSUHSC-NO SOM and has previously completed graduate training in medical genetics, epidemiology, and global health. She has served as her medical school’s STARS Fellow, completing projects to evaluate the implementation of Choosing Wisely guidelines at hospitals across greater New Orleans and to improve health literacy at the point of care. In addition, Shivani had been working with STARS Fellows at Dell Medical School to author a case for the “Anatomy of A Medical Bill” project. She is involved with honors research, a Latinx scholars program, the honors council, the interprofessional education scholars program, the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, and various health advocacy and service organizations at her school as well as in her community. She is passionate about improving high-value care, transparency in medicine, and sustainable design in health care systems.
Anitra Karthic, MS3
-Member
The Ohio State University
Anitra is a third year medical student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Her interest in
high value care increased greatly through her involvement in the Choosing Wisely STARS program.
Working with her cohort to implement HVC into their school’s curriculum helped her understand the
vital role that HVC plays in medical education. Students are curious about our healthcare system and
hungry to learn more! This motivated her to join the Clerkship Task Force to help expand learning opportunities. She firmly believes that incorporating HVC principles into clinical clerkships is important
for nurturing well-rounded and compassionate physicians who can make informed decisions for the benefit of their patients.
Karthik Ramesh, MS3
-Member
University of California – San Diego
Karthik is a current 3rd year medical student at UCSD. He originally studied engineering with a focus on biomedical devices at UC Berkeley before spending two years working to discover new therapies for rare cancers using machine learning. At UCSD, he has been deeply involved with high value care initiatives as a member of the 2022 STARS Cohort, Co-President of the UCSD VBM student interest group, and Co-Founder of the HealthValueLab. He is excited to be a member of this committee and advance HVC education. His other research interests include machine learning approaches to device safety, perioperative quality improvement, immunotherapy response, and sepsis prediction.
Hannah Shenton, MS3
-Member
The Ohio State University
Hannah is a third year medical student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and a member of the 2022 Choosing Wisely STARS Cohort. She originally got interested in High-Value Care through a selective course during her first year of medical school. This peaked her interest in how healthcare overuse and increasing costs of care are decreasing value of patient care. Hannah is looking forward to working with like-minded individuals on the clerkship task force to improve value of patient care through early HVC education in undergraduate medical education. Outside of medicine, she enjoys being active, especially through yoga and running, spending time with her family and friends, reading, and traveling!
Nathan Yee, MS4
- Member
UMass Chan Medical School
Nathan Yee is a current 4th year medical student at UMass Chan Medical School applying into internal medicine residency this fall. After attending the STARS summit as a second-year student, he got involved with the health systems science component of UMass’ curriculum overhaul. He hopes to continue pursuing leadership opportunities and making value-based care a key part of his future career.