People

Bobbi has over 15 years of experience working in healthcare in various roles to improve patient care, organize staff development training, and support operational services. She works collaboratively with cross-functional teams (e.g., Material Services, Facilities, Hospitality, EH&S, D&C, and Patient Safety) to support the opening of new sites (e.g., hospital units, ambulatory clinics, LPPH relocation to Mt. Zion, HDH construction impacts, and Bayfront Medical Building).

Dr. Lei Choi is an internal medicine specialist who provides primary care for adults. She is the medical director for UCSF's continuous improvement objective and co-director of the UCSF School of Medicine's Health System's Improvement, a curriculum for medical students that incorporates skills in health systems improvement, among other professional competencies.

Denise Elgarico is the Assistant Director of the Continuous Improvement Department at UCSF Health.

As an effective communicator, motivating educator, and caring leader, she has led numerous successful process improvement initiatives that have drastically improved department morale, increased patient satisfaction, and resulted in millions of dollars of cost savings for the organization.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Denise is a Bay Area native and proud mother of Noa Xavier, who joined her growing family in July 2024.

Brian Holt is a Senior Improvement Advisor as well as the former Program Manager of the Caring Wisely program at UCSF. He has an MHA from Suffolk University in Boston and has over 17 years of healthcare process improvement, project, and change management experience working at Massachusetts General Hospital, Partners in Health, Partners Healthcare International, and UCSF in both the inpatient and outpatient settings as well as domestic and international settings such as Qatar and Peru.

Emily is a senior program manager who supports Continuous Improvement programs and projects, including the Lean Leadership Development program, Graduate Medical Education (GME) quality improvement incentive program, REFLECT, and Learning Health System Coaching program, to name a few.

Edwin Lager is a senior continuous improvement advisor in UCSF’s Continuous Improvement department. He strives to improve the experience of patients and staff at UCSF by coaching and implementing sustained incremental improvement. Edwin received a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has extensive experience in problem-solving and process improvement tools. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, and all things outdoors, particularly cycling and surfing.

Raj is an Industrial Engineer with extensive experience in performance improvement and operations leadership within the food processing, biologics, and healthcare industries.

His goal is to empower teams and organizations to excel in fulfilling their mission by creating systems and processes that prioritize both the people they serve and those who contribute to the mission's success.

Raj is passionate about problem-solving and thrives on applying industrial engineering principles, lean methodologies, IT, and data analytics to drive efficiency and innovation.

Karishma is a dedicated healthcare professional with a wealth of experience in quality improvement and leadership. She began her journey at UCSF Health in 2016, where she led numerous process enhancement initiatives and effectively utilized quality management metrics to drive performance improvements across the sector. Her background reflects a strong commitment to customer service, operations, and management excellence. Recognized for her transparent leadership style, Karishma cultivates a culture of compassion and continually strives for improvement.