SCI physician
VA Pacific Islands Health Care System
Rachel Murkofsky, MD, MPH, is the Spinal Cord Injury & Disorders (SCI&D) Physician at VA Pacific Islands Health Care System (VAPIHCS) in Honolulu, HI. She has spent the last 16 years developing a program to provide outstanding, comprehensive lifelong healthcare for SCI&D veterans. Her activities have included clinical program development and evaluation, and the building of an exceptional program for Veterans with SCI&D in Hawaii and across the Pacific. Over 13+ years, she has used competitively acquired Office of Rural Health funds to expand access to specialized SCI&D services for Veterans across the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific (including Guam, Saipan, Rota, and American Samoa).
During her training, Dr. Murkofsky spent two years as a research fellow in the division of General Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. She also completed a clinical geriatrics fellowship at Harvard to solidify her clinical knowledge of geriatric medicine further while continuing her research.
Over the past 4 years, Dr. Murkofsky has implemented the Age-Friendly Health System 4Ms framework within her facility's SCI&D Program and supported other geriatrics programs at VAPIHCS in implementing age-friendly care. Hers was the first VA SCI&D Program in the country to receive the AFHS – Participant and AFHS – Committed to Care Excellence designations, and the first program to receive this designation on behalf of her facility. Due to her work in this area, she was awarded a scholarship to participate in the American Hospital Association (AHA) Next Generation Leaders Fellowship. Her project in this area has been to spread AFHS principles across the entire VA SCI&D System of Care. She has worked closely with the National VA AFHS Workgroup and the National VA SCI&D Program Office on this project.
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