Patricia Kavanagh, MD, FAAP

Dr. Kavanagh is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Kavanagh has a national reputation in using systems approaches to improve the care of children and adults with sickle cell disease (SCD), especially in the emergency department setting. For more than 15 years, she has conducted health services research in Sickle Cell Disease and has been federally funded continually since 2011. Her current grant activities include studying the impact of screening and referring families with unmet basic needs on health outcomes for their children with SCD, and serving as a subject matter expert in a multisite randomized trial comparing individualized pain protocols with weight-based protocols to manage acute SCD pain in the adult ED setting. She co-founded the Emergency Department Sickle Cell Care Coalition, which receives administrative support from the American College of Emergency Physicians to promote guideline-based treatment of complications related to SCD through education, advocacy, and research.