CHDI Welcomes Dr. David Krol as Vice President for Health Initiatives
Dr. Krol will serve as Vice President for Health Initiatives at CHDI
and as Medical Director for the Connecticut Children’s Care Network
Farmington, CT –
The
Child Health and Development Institute
(CHDI) is pleased to welcome David Krol, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatrician, as CHDI’s Vice President for Health Initiatives.
Beginning September 14, Dr. Krol will oversee CHDI’s efforts to strengthen pediatric primary care across Connecticut. David replaces CHDI’s current Vice President for Health Initiatives,
Lisa Honigfeld, Ph.D., who is retiring after 15 years of service to CHDI and seven years as a senior advisor to the Connecticut Children’s Office for Community Child Health. Continuing this long-standing tradition of collaboration, David will also serve as Medical Director for theConnecticut Children’s Care Network, a primary care pediatrician-led organization that brings together Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, their subspecialists and community physicians into one network to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs for children’s services.
CHDI works collaboratively with policymakers, academic partners, providers, and community and family leaders to implement systems, policy, and practice change to improve children’s health and well-being. David will play a statewide leadership role in advancing effective pediatric primary care systems and will support linkages between CHDI, the Connecticut Children’s Office for Community Child Health and the Connecticut Children’s Care Network. CHDI’s collaboration with the Connecticut Children’s Care Network will provide opportunities to identify, test, and advance innovations in the delivery and payment of pediatric primary care to improve children’s health and well-being across the state. The partnership also offers opportunities to accelerate behavioral health and primary care integration and the adoption of value-based payment strategies in child health services.
Throughout his career as a pediatrician, researcher, advocate, and nonprofit leader, David has worked to improve the lives of children and youth. Most recently, he served as Medical Director of the New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, and its New Jersey Healthy Kids initiative at Rutgers University, to help children, families, and communities improve nutrition, physical activity, and health outcomes. At Rutgers he was also a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine. Prior to joining Rutgers, he furthered early childhood obesity prevention efforts as a Senior Program Officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and is a former Chair of the University of Toledo Department of Pediatrics. During his time as a practicing pediatrician, David has provided primary care services to underserved children and families in Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and New Jersey.
David is a board-certified pediatrician and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). He has testified before federal, state and local legislators on behalf of children; served on many expert panels, technical advisory groups, and task forces; and published his work in Pediatrics and other scholarly journals. David received a B.A. from the University of Toledo, an M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine, and a Master’s of Public Health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He completed a pediatrics residency at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland and is an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program and a former Bush Fellow in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University. Drafted by the Minnesota Twins, he played professional baseball for three years before enrolling in medical school.
David replaces Lisa Honigfeld who is retiring from CHDI after overseeing pediatric primary and preventative care initiatives for the past 15 years and also serving as Senior Advisor for the
Office for Community Child Health
(OCCH) at Connecticut Children's. Under her leadership, CHDI collaborated with the State of Connecticut, provider organizations, and family advocates to ensure that children were at the forefront of health reform efforts, and that pediatric primary care was well-positioned to optimally contribute to children’s health and well-being. During her career, Dr. Honigfeld helped pediatric primary care sites in Connecticut implement the Medical Home approach, furthered care coordination statewide, created CHDI’s successful Educating Practices
program to implement best practices in pediatric primary care, and helped to dramatically increase screening for developmental and behavioral health concerns and maternal depression. Lisa was also instrumental in the creation of OCCH in 2013 and forged a lasting partnership between CHDI and OCCH to improve community child health services and support broad dissemination of innovations in pediatric care in Connecticut. In 2019, with OCCH Director Dr. Paul H. Dworkin, Lisa outlined a vision for improving child and population health, which CHDI published as
A Framework for Child Health Services: Promoting optimal health, development, and well-being for all children.
