Dr. Baker is Senior Vice Chair for Quality and Safety and a senior member of the emergency department’s operations management team. He strives to improve healthcare through systems improvements and to achieve personal excellence in patient care while serving as a clinical educator and researcher. His quality improvement training includes having completed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 10-month “Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program”.
Dr. Baker received his MD degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 1990 and completed his residency in emergency medicine at Northwestern University in 1994. He served as Associate Director of the Surgical Section of the ED, Lincoln Medical Center (Bronx, NY), where he spearheaded a variety of projects towards improving systems of care within the ED (as well as chaired the hospital’s Disaster Committee).
In 1997, Dr. Baker joined the BU Emergency Medicine group, initially helping kick-start the department’s staffing and administering of an affiliated community ED with a new EM residency rotation. He transitioned full-time to the BMC campus in 2002 where he plays a key role among the department’s leadership in the areas of operations management and quality improvement. His interests, expertise and activities are varied and, in addition to the above, include critical care, sepsis, emergency preparedness, ultrasound, competency evaluation and EMS. He supports the University and hospital through a variety of committees and projects, including as serving as faculty/mentor to the BMC QI Hub and BUMC Early Career Faculty Development Program.
His responsibilities extend beyond the hospital. Dr. Baker has chaired SAEM’s ED Administration & Clinical Operation’s and SAEM’s Web Evolution Committees as well as SAEM’s Operations and Clinical Directors Interest Groups. Local EMS committee membership includes Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals (previously chaired) and Metropolitan Boston Emergency Medical Service Council’s Medical Control Committee and Board of Directors.