The EMJ Podcast | Episode 227
This week, Jonathan is joined by Silvia Munoz-Price, Medical Director at the Department of Infection Control and Prevention in the Jackson Health System located in Miami, Florida. The pair discuss lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy, and health equity.
Spotify | Apple | Amazon Music | Download MP3 (48 mins)
Silvia Munoz-Price is an infectious diseases physician; a hospital epidemiologist; and was former Chief Quality & Safety Officer at Virginia Commonwealth University Health, USA. Munoz-Price is double board certified in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine, holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Miami, and is currently completing a Master’s in healthcare management at Johns Hopkins University at the Carey School of Business.
She served as the Inaugural Chief Quality and Safety Officer, Chief Data and Analytics Officer and was a member of the Executive Leadership team at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System (VCUHS) from 2021 to 2024. Impressively, during her tenure there, the institution decreased its serious safety events by more than half. Subsequently, the centre achieved the #1 ranking in Vizient’s Safety Domain among 116 academic medical centres.
Between 2014 and 2021, Silvia was the Enterprise Epidemiologist at Froedtert Health System and a Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she not only led the pandemic response for her institution but also was part of the COVID-19 Wisconsin preparedness response and vaccine allocations.
Currently, Munoz-Price is helping the Richmond community by providing primary care to a medically underserved, primarily Spanish-speaking Hispanic population.
- 00:09 – Introduction
- 02:46 – Hospital Consolidations
- 08:20 – Reducing Safety Events
- 10:12 – Spotting Trends in Quality Metrics
- 15:10 – Vaccine Hesitancy
- 19:44 – Preparedness Ahead of COVID-19
- 23:36 – How Can We Encourage Vaccination
- 24:41 – The American Healthcare System
- 31:00 – Removing Politics from Medicine
- 40:27 – Zoonoses and Changing Migration Patterns
- 43:59 – Encouraging a Career in Epidemiology
- 45:07 – Silvia’s Three Wishes
