Dr. Rachel Schwartz received her BA in Linguistics from UCLA followed by a PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders from McGill University. She then completed an AcademyHealth Delivery System Science fellowship where she conducted a four-site study exploring neurologists’ perspectives on the facilitators and barriers to care delivery for patients with Parkinson’s disease. She then spent a year working in quality improvement at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Department of Complex Care, where she was responsible for developing new operational protocol for supporting providers in delivering high-quality family-centered care.

Dr. Schwartz is currently collaborating on projects related to improving physician wellness and developing new protocol to support the early identification of palliative and spiritual care needs of geriatric patients in the Emergency Department.

Dr. Schwartz was a 2015 AcademyHealth Delivery System Science Fellow. Her host site was the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.