Dr. Alexander Garza, SSM Health’s Chief Community Health Officer, has been named as one of the healthcare industry’s 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives for 2022 by Modern Healthcare magazine.
The 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives award program honors individuals in healthcare who are deemed by their peers and the senior editors of Modern Healthcare to be paving the way to better health through their executive responsibility, leadership qualities, innovation, community service and achievements inside and outside of their respective organizations.
The honor was announced in Modern Healthcare’s June 20 issue. The magazine praised Dr. Garza’s work to improve health equity and address the social determinants of health. It also noted that his “passion for social justice has shaped his 32-year healthcare career, beginning with his early jobs as a paramedic and flight medic and extending to his work in underserved communities in the U.S. and as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.”
Dr. Garza works on the front lines of improving health equity at SSM Health. He been outspoken in noting that “health disparities” are a misnomer for the risk factors that disproportionately endanger the poor and vulnerable.
“It’s not so much health disparities,” he said, “but social and economic disparities that actually produce the health disparities. If we ever want to come across a solution to a pandemic, we have to address these things first.”
Before helping to create his current role in 2020, Dr. Garza oversaw quality, patient safety and clinical analytics as the SSM Health’s chief medical officer. He also organized and led SSM Health’s overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic and then assumed the role of Incident Commander for the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, overseeing the region’s coordinated response efforts.
