PHILADELPHIA – Anna Doubeni, MD, MPH, an associate professor of clinical family medicine in
Family Medicine and Community Health at the
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, was named Family Physician of the Year by the
Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians (PAFP). Doubeni shares the honor with Mary Fabian, MD of Allentown, Pennsylvania, as PAFP’s 2017 co-Family Physicians of the Year.
The PAFP committee selected Doubeni based on a demonstrated commitment to high quality patient care, community engagement, service as a role model to patients and colleagues, and a devotion to making the world a better place as a family physician. Doubeni was nominated for the award by several of her colleagues.
Board-certified in both Family Medicine and General Preventive Medicine, Doubeni dedicates much of her work to addressing needs of medically and socially disadvantaged patients, as well as tackling access to care and global health issues. Previously the associate program director of the Preventive Medicine Residency program at the University of Massachusetts, a strong background in community-based care and population health informs Doubeni’s current practice.
Doubeni also serves as the director of population health management for the department of Family Medicine and Community Health, guided by a vision to reduce health disparities and improve outcomes for the 25,000 patients served by Penn Family Care. A highly skilled family physician, educator, and researcher, Doubeni is also a staunch advocate for the needs of underserved patients and communities.
This commitment extends well beyond the Philadelphia region and into far reaching parts of the globe. While coordinator of global health in the UMass department of Family Medicine and Community Health, she developed a global health program that continues to thrive. She has supported workforce development and training in Haiti through the AAFP Foundation, and directed a global health fellowship at Penn, which helps fellows develop clinical, educational and leadership skills in care for underserved populations in West Philadelphia and Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.
As a lifelong advocate for disabled patients, Doubeni has cared for homebound patients, patients with developmental disabilities, and nursing home patients dating back to before she entered medical school. She has continued home visits throughout her practice and is the lead physician for the Penn Family Care home visit program.
Motivated by the potential negative impact of high-cost, low-value care driven by use of the ED and hospital, she spearheaded the Penn Family Care superutilizer working group’s development of the Priority Access Program, a concierge care service for patients who make frequent visits to the emergency room and are readmitted. Supported by the Penn Medicine Center for Healthcare Innovation, the program established a state-of-art automated hovering platform looking at unmet social needs and mental health conditions and other attributes to identify patients at risk of potentially preventable ED visits and readmissions.
Doubeni developed the concept “identify, enable and empower” as a framework to improve patient care and shift healthcare utilization. This innovative program has demonstrated over 30 percent reduction in ED utilization in tandem with an increase in access to the primary care physician. This program became the foundation for funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration to establish the National Center for Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care and the practice’s participation in a national practice transformation initiative, Comprehensive Primary Care Plus, from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. An advocate of health equity, she teaches about how the “normalization of pathology” with illnesses such as anemia and chronic kidney disease perpetuates the cycle of poverty in low-income minority populations.
For more information about this recognition, visit the PAFP announcement.
Doubeni completed medical school at Temple University, a family medicine residency at Duke University, and a preventive medicine residency/fellowship at University Massachusetts Medical Center. She is a member of the American College of Preventive Medicine, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, and American Academy of Family Physicians.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise powered by more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.