Luis Fernando Garcia

Luis Fernando Garcia is a Certified Patient Navigator at Rush University Medical Center and has been in the healthcare industry for the last 8 years. His job includes conducting Social Determinants of Health Screens and assisting patients with social needs. Fernando is committed to providing excellent and compassionate care to every patient he has the privilege of meeting.

He was born in Guatemala where there is no organized healthcare system and where poverty is a daily struggle. He came to the United States when he was 11 with the idea of living the American dream.

However, over the years Fernando started to notice inequality and suffering in the health care system, which reminded him about the Guatemalan healthcare struggles he witnessed in the past. He started to work for Rush University Medical Center in 2016 in the Population Health department. During that time he was able to assist patients and connect them with a primary and psychiatric care. For the last 5 years he has specialized background in working with individuals in the Psych Unit and care coordination. Fernando was already a Patient Care Navigator but received more education and became certified in 2018. He also received a certification to be a Mental Health Aide in 2019.

Fernando can empathize with patients who do not have health insurance or the financial means to get appropriate care. Therefore, he is devoted to helping them find all the resources available to them. If Fernando does not know the answer to a question you can bet he will find it.

When he is not taking care of patients, he enjoys spending quality time with his wife and children. He actively participates in the community by preaching the good news about God. He believes that little things can make a big difference.

Terry Gallagher, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, CNL

Terry Gallagher, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, CNL, is the nursing director for the Center to Transform Health and Housing and a family nurse practitioner in the Department of Social Work and Community Health at RUSH University Medical Center. Gallagher was one of the nursing leaders who helped establish the Sue Gin Health Center at Oakley Square Apartments, a free clinic located within an affordable housing development on the West side of Chicago. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gallagher supported the development of CARReS, a medical respite isolation facility for people with COVID-19 who had housing instability, in partnership with RUSH, Chicago Department of Public Health, and A Safe Haven. Gallagher has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Master of Science from University of Illinois at Chicago, a Master of Science in Nursing from DePaul University, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice from RUSH University.

Sara Izquierdo, MPH, M2 at UICOM

Sara Izquierdo is the founder of the Mobile Migrant Health Team and a second year medical student at UICOM. While pursuing her Master of Public Health prior to medical school, she investigated the incidence of violence against migrants transiting Latin America in collaboration with Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health. In Chicago, she volunteers as a community organizer and has coordinated neighborhood-led vaccination campaigns during the COVID-19 pandemic and preventative health fairs in underserved, low-resource communities. In April of 2023, she started the Mobile Migrant Health Team with a group of classmates and physicians to provide health assessments for recently arrived asylum seekers.

Stephan Koruba, FNP-BC

Stephan Koruba is a Family Certified Nurse Practitioner, with nearly 20 years’ experience providing care in both traditional and non-traditional practice settings.  For the past 5 years, Stephan has provided free advanced nursing care to Chicago’s unhoused community while serving as Clinical Supervisor of The Night Ministry’s Street Medicine Team.

During his early professional career, while designing and implementing community improvement projects in rural Alaska and Bolivia, Stephan came to understand that the basic form and direction of community development must come from the people embarking on the process of change.  Engaging in persistent and nonjudgmental dialog with community members, allowed Stephan to become a student of the people and culture he was serving and in turn, assured the nature of the work served the community’s interests.

While completing his master’s in nursing at DePaul University, Stephan found this approach was directly applicable to the patient/provider relationship and is often referred to as ‘meeting clients where they are’.  Taking the time to understand a client’s history, priorities and motivations, not only affirms and empowers them, but leads directly to productive outcomes.

Stephan has enjoyed the opportunity to work in urban and rural settings, within large and small healthcare systems, at the level of local and regional government, alongside national and international agencies, through university systems and for both non-profit and for-profit corporations.  Across these varied ecosystems, he has gained valuable experience in cross-cultural communication, program design, grant writing/reporting, interagency program implementation/evaluation, research and staff management.

Alexander Sloboda, MD, MPH

Dr. Sloboda is a licensed emergency medicine physician and public health leader. He has previously worked as an emergency medicine physician and faculty at Columbia University Medical Center and Rush University Medical Center. He is now the Medical Director of Immunization and Emergency Preparedness Programs for the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). During his time at CDPH, he has been leading operations for CDPH’s New Arrivals Response and the City of Chicago’s Measles Outbreak Response.

Dr. Sloboda also completed a fellowship in Global Emergency Medicine and has been working with partners in Ghana and Nigeria for over a decade in developing EMS systems, emergency medicine capacity, and emergency medicine training. He has also developed and led high school mentorship and pipeline programs as well as emergency department and community initiatives for trauma-informed care and violence prevention. Dr. Sloboda is a passionate advocate for health equity, social justice, and universal health care.

• Director of Preventive Emergency Medicine
• Senior Director, Business Development, Institute of Healthcare Delivery Design (IHDD)

University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health)

Stephen Brown has split appointments between the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design (IHDD) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  He leads the Better Health Through Housing program, UI Health’s housing program for the chronically homeless.  It is the longest running healthcare-to-housing program (since 2015) and has housed more homeless persons than any other single hospital in the country.  He also runs ComPAcT, a team-based care program that works to better coordinate the care for healthcare super-utilizers.

His role as a IHDD Senior Director focuses on systemic social justice, working collaboratively with legislators, judges, first responders, state agencies, healthcare, and behavioral health service providers to decriminalize homelessness, mental illness and substance use, and to create a care continuum that addresses the complex care needs of persons suffering from these conditions.

Nicholas Cozzi, MD, MBA

Dr. Nicholas Cozzi is an MBA-trained ABEM-board certified Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services Physician. Nicholas graduated as a Chief Resident of Spectrum Health / Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and completed an EMS Fellowship with the Fire Department of New York City/ Northwell Health. Dr. Cozzi serves as the EMS & Disaster Medicine Medical Director and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Rush University Medical Center and also serves as an Online-Medical Control (OLMC) Physician for the Fire Department of New York City. Dr. Cozzi also was a member of the second class of ACEP’s Reimbursement Leadership Development Program.

Dr. Cozzi is passionate about the democratization of business education for emergency physicians as well as building opportunities for our communities, through growing the healthcare workforce of tomorrow as Co-Founder of the Health Careers Pipleine Program. This impactful and intentional high school program centered on healthcareer exposure and college readiness. Over the past seven years, the program has graduated over one hundred and thirty Michigan high school students in thirty seven high schools within the state of Michigan. Dr. Cozzi is also passionate about community-based lifesaving trainings, teaching our Chicagoland West-Side community members with accesible education in CPR, Narcan, and Stop-The-Bleed training.

Stephan Koruba is a Family Certified Nurse Practitioner, with nearly 20 years’ experience providing care in both traditional and non-traditional practice settings.  For the past 5 years, Stephan has provided free advanced nursing care to Chicago’s unhoused community while serving as Clinical Supervisor of The Night Ministry’s Street Medicine Team.

During his early professional career, while designing and implementing community improvement projects in rural Alaska and Bolivia, Stephan came to understand that the basic form and direction of community development must come from the people embarking on the process of change.  Engaging in persistent and nonjudgmental dialog with community members, allowed Stephan to become a student of the people and culture he was serving and in turn, assured the nature of the work served the community’s interests.

While completing his master’s in nursing at DePaul University, Stephan found this approach was directly applicable to the patient/provider relationship and is often referred to as ‘meeting clients where they are’.  Taking the time to understand a client’s history, priorities and motivations, not only affirms and empowers them, but leads directly to productive outcomes.

Stephan has enjoyed the opportunity to work in urban and rural settings, within large and small healthcare systems, at the level of local and regional government, alongside national and international agencies, through university systems and for both non-profit and for-profit corporations.  Across these varied ecosystems, he has gained valuable experience in cross-cultural communication, program design, grant writing/reporting, interagency program implementation/evaluation, research and staff management.

Elizabeth Davis, MD is Chief Medical Officer Liaison for Community Health Equity at Rush University Medical Center. She has woven together health equity, clinical innovation, and education throughout her career and has expertise in building innovative models of care for complex patients. Dr. Davis has led several community-based initiatives, including a community vaccination and testing team a mobile health care team for people experiencing homelessness. Both teams have partnered closely with the Chicago Department of Public Health and other institutions to provide healthcare for new arrivals to Chicago.

Dr. Davis has had leadership roles in complex care management and care coordination programs both at Rush University Medical Center and San Francisco Health Network. She has presented nationally about implementation and outcomes of complex care programs. She has also studied patient perspectives on health care using both quantitative and qualitative methods. She has served on Institute for Healthcare Improvement, National Quality Forum, California Association of Public Hospitals, Chicago Department of Public Health, and San Francisco Department of Public Health committees focused on health equity, case management, care transitions, interdisciplinary practice, and medical education.

Dr. Davis led the creation and growth of the Health Equity and Social Justice Program in Rush Medical School. Prior to coming to Rush, she was a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco, where she taught learners about complex care, health equity, and quality improvement.