50 Most Influential Clinical Executives - 2024

Garza hones SSM Health’s focus on social determinants of health, equity and justice, along with supporting its population health work. He played a key role in implementing an electronic health record-based screening tool to identify patients’ social needs, along with a platform that can connect individuals with services from a network of nearly 1,000 community agencies. More than 2,000 patients were screened for food insecurity through a pilot in 2023; of those, more than 10% received help. The 23-hospital St. Louis-headquartered system this year is expanding the initiative to more sites.