The 2013 Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards in the early-career physician category honor Alen Voskanian, MD, regional medical director of VITAS Innovative Hospice Care in Torrance, Calif.
Dr. Voskanian has expanded and developed innovative models of ambulatory palliative care and raised awareness of the benefits of palliative and end-of-life care through work with government agencies and professional organizations. In 2010, he was selected to participate in a California HealthCare Foundation Health Care Leadership Program, a fellowship that prepares health care professionals to assume significant roles in improving the state’s health care system. His project focused on initiating earlier palliative care outside the hospital setting.
An innovator, he was one of only 73 out of more than 900 applicants chosen to participate in the nationwide Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Advisors project, which develops new ideas, models, and methods of health care delivery for Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Voskanian’s work explored ways to increase ambulatory palliative care through education within health care and to increase public awareness through public policy.
Dr. Voskanian received his medical degree from the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine in 2000.