Primary Care Week

We invite all students, residents, faculty and staff to join us for Primary Care Week from September 30 – October 2.

Team Up for Health: Policy Shifts for Better Primary Care featuring the Bellue-Holly Distinguished Visiting Professor, LAUREN HUGHES, MD, MPH.

Lauren S. Hughes, MD, MPH, MSc, MHCDS, FAAFP

Lauren S. Hughes, MD, MPH, MSc, MHCDS, FAAFP, is the state policy director of the Farley Health Policy Center and associate professor of family medicine, both at the University of Colorado. In these roles, she leads initiatives to generate and/or translate data for policymakers to inform the design and implementation of evidence-based health policy that improves rural health delivery, strengthens primary care infrastructure, and integrates behavioral health and primary care. She cares for patients at a rural federally qualified health center (FQHC) north of Denver.

Dr. Hughes previously served as Deputy Secretary for Health Innovation in the Pennsylvania Department of Health, where she launched the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, a new payment and delivery model that transitions rural hospitals from fee-for-service to multi-payer global budgets and transforms how they deliver care to better meet community health needs. She also oversaw the creation of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program and led the Department to full accreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board.

Dr. Hughes is a former national president of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA). She has volunteered through AmeriCorps at Lifelong Medical Care (an urban FQHC) in Berkeley, CA, interned for former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin in Washington, DC, and studied medicine and public health systems in Brazil, Sweden, Tanzania, and Botswana. She has been a visiting scholar at the Robert Graham Center, the ABC News Medical Unit in New York City, the CMS Innovation Center, and The Commonwealth Fund. Dr. Hughes served as chair of the American Board of Family Medicine Board of Directors from 2022 – 23.

She currently serves as vice chair of the Rural Health Redesign Center Organization Board of Directors and on the AMSA Foundation Board of Directors. She is a member of the Primary Care Payment Reform Collaborative through the Colorado Division of Insurance and the Stakeholder Advisory Group for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality National Center for Excellence in Primary Care Research. In 2018, she was selected as a Presidential Leadership Scholar by Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and in 2021, she was named to the National Academy of Medicine Board on Health Care Services. Since August 2023, Dr. Hughes has co-chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Standing Committee on Primary Care, alongside Dr. Mary Wakefield. 

Dr. Hughes is an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Michigan, where she earned an MSc in health services research. She also holds a medical degree from the University of Iowa, an MPH in health policy from The George Washington University, and a master’s in health care delivery science from Dartmouth College and completed residency in the urban, underserved family medicine track at the University of Washington.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

MONDAY, SEPT. 30

Carolyn B. Holly Essay Contest Virtual Panel Discussion

5:30 – 6:45 PM

TEAMS MEETING

Meeting ID: 229 595 567 865           Passcode: Jv9QPC

Dial in by phone

+1 210-469-0159,,665764380# United States, San Antonio

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Phone conference ID: 665 764 380#

TUESDAY, OCT. 1 

An Experienced Physician’s Perspective*

12:00 – 1:00 PM

Pestana Lecture Hall

*Lunch provided

Hands-On Procedure Workshop for Students

4:00 – 6:30 PM

ALTC 2nd Floor

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 2

Medicine Grand Rounds

8:00 – 9:00 AM

ALTC 2.214

Family and Community Medicine Grand Rounds

12:30 – 1:30 PM

Robert B. Green Campus 5th Floor Foundation Room