Salimpour receives Washington University School of Medicine Alumni Award

Pejman Salimpour, MD, co-founder and chief executive officer of CareNex Health Services, has received a 2012 Alumni Achievement Award from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The award acknowledges outstanding personal achievement and professional accomplishments, as well as community service and dedication to Washington University Medical Center. Salimpour earned a medical degree from the School of Medicine in 1987.

Since then, he has been at the forefront of efforts to improve the care of premature infants and to create sustainable financial models to deliver care. He is a co-founder of Plymouth Health, a physician-owned, California-based company that operated Alvarado Hospital in San Diego until November 2010. He also co-founded First-Five-LA Connect, a not-for-profit organization that established an information and referral telephone call center and website for families and young children. The program helped more than 100,000 children and their families find affordable health insurance and public health-care services.

“I am both honored and humbled to be the recipient of this award,” he says. “It is particularly meaningful coming from my alma mater in recognition of our ongoing efforts to improve health care and access to health care in underserved communities and populations, especially among the youngest members of our society.”

Other recipients of this year’s Alumni Achievement Award include Keith Bridwell, MD, the J. Albert Key Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine; Gary S. Rachelefsky, MD, clinical professor and associate director of the Allergy/Immunology Training Program in the Department of Pediatrics at UCLA School of Medicine; and Warner C. Greene, MD, PhD, director of virology and immunology research at the University of California, San Francisco-affiliated Gladstone Institutes.

In 2005, Salimpour co-founded CareNex Health Services, a health-care technology and medical management organization specializing in neonatal and perinatal disease management programs.

In 1998, Salimpour garnered national attention for leading an initiative to make sure neonatologists were allowed to treat patients in the hospital of their choice. That successful campaign led to the introduction of new policies that impacted California and beyond.

A physician leader both in the state and national arenas, Salimpour was appointed by the White House to serve on the Task Force on Improving Healthcare for Latinos in the United States in 2005 as well as the U.S. Small Business Administration National Advisory Council.

He was elected by fellow physicians to the boards of directors of the California Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and of the Los Angeles County Medical Association, as well as to the House of Delegates of the California Medical Association. In addition, former California Gov. Gray Davis awarded him a commendation for his Distinguished Record of Service to California’s Children.

This July, Salimpour, along with his brother and father, also pediatricians, released A Visual Atlas of Pediatrics, a 600-page textbook atlas, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Salimpour, clinical professor of pediatrics at David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, was previously clinical chief of pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He earned an undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed a residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.