The back-to-school season can be an exciting yet stressful time, as close quarters and peer-to-peer interaction in schools after the summer months spent apart can pose an increased risk of illness for students, staff, and families. The Data Resource for Child and Adolescent Health (DRCAH) reported that more than two-thirds of students missed at least one school day during the 2022 school year due to illness. This May, in effort to maximize school attendance and its benefits for all students, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidance on everyday actions that schools can take to prevent and control the spread of respiratory, stomach viruses, and bacterial illness. This month, as students return to school, we spoke with Hagerty’s Vice President of Healthcare & University Programs, Jeff Bokser, and Preparedness Senior Manager, Gurdeep Singh Nagi, to discuss their career paths and back-to-school health preparedness measures.
1. Tell us about yourself and how your career path led you to Hagerty.
Jeff Bokser: Prior to joining Hagerty Consulting, I built my career working in academic medical centers, both in New York and Connecticut, where I gained experience in all aspects of leading healthcare operations, finance, crisis management, and disaster recovery. I started my career in a New York City (NYC) hospital in healthcare administration three months prior to September 11, 2001. I was quickly placed in the hospital command center and helped the hospital respond to the events and the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. I have since led hospital staff in planning, executing, and responding to significant emergency events including Ebola, Hurricane Sandy, H1N1 Pandemic, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), anthrax scares, mass-casualty surge incidents, and deploying disaster response teams and telemedicine nationally. This prepared me for the ultimate challenge of working with Hagerty Consulting colleagues to support hundreds of hospitals, universities, and health departments across the country respond to and recover financially from COVID-19 and now build future operational organizational resilience.
Gurdeep Singh Nagi: I have been with Hagerty for over four years now and am currently a Senior Manager. I joined Hagerty Consulting in the summer of 2020 and started supporting our clients in California by providing public health response operations for the COVID-19 pandemic. I have spent all of my professional career in the healthcare sector, starting out in Emergency Medical Services as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), and later a Paramedic. I then decided to pursue my interest in clinical care by becoming a medical doctor to impact peoples’ healthcare at the next level. Along the way I joined policy committees and gained leadership roles in community clinics where I began to understand the administrative and operational side of healthcare; I felt there was a great calling for my skillset. That was when I decided to make the full-time switch into administrative practice and joined Hagerty. During my first two years at Hagerty, I was also enrolled in a graduate program at Loyola University in Chicago, earning my master’s in business administration with a concentration in Healthcare Administration, which I completed in November 2021. Currently, I am an active member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) where I learn and network with experienced and proven leaders in my field and hope to complete my fellowship in the next two years.
2. How do you personally plan to prepare for the upcoming respiratory virus season?
Jeff Bokser: I never leave home without a Purell in my pocket. With the growing number of viruses, it seems respiratory season is now all year round. However, during the fall and winter months, I especially try to avoid crowded indoor spaces with lack of ventilation as much as possible. If I or a family member in my household feels sick, we try and isolate them until symptoms subside to avoid the spread of respiratory viruses to others. I will receive my updated COVID-19 and flu vaccines in the coming months to help minimize the potential of getting sick and minimize symptoms if exposed to a virus.
Gurdeep Singh Nagi: The fall and winter respiratory virus seasons have always been a challenging time, and as a public health provider, it is critically important for us to educate our communities. Fall and winter respiratory viruses include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and COVID-19; and all age groups can be infected. Fortunately, there are vaccines for all three viruses that can prevent or limit the symptoms of the viruses. I routinely keep up to date on my vaccines and encourage my family and friends to do so by consulting with their primary care provider in shared clinical decision making.
In addition to vaccines and treatments, we may also look to non-pharmacological practices that can limit the exposure to or likelihood of contracting respiratory viruses. Those practices include regularly washing your hands, physical distancing from known persons who are sick, improving airflow in places where people live and work, and testing early to detect these respiratory viruses so you don’t delay treatment if appropriate.
3. Can you discuss the importance of individual as well as community prevention efforts against the spread of viruses?
Jeff Bokser: As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” If everyone in a community does their part to recognize when they have a respiratory virus and takes precautions such as staying home when they exhibit contagious symptoms or wearing a mask when they need to be in public during period of contagion, we can do a lot more to protect communities — particularly vulnerable populations — with underlying health conditions that are at higher risk for more severe illness. We must restore trust in public health and recognize that, as future diseases emerge, it will take everyone listening to trusted physicians and public health leaders on the best ways to keep you and your family safe and healthy.
Gurdeep Singh Nagi: We all experienced the impacts a virus can have when spread rapidly during COVID-19, and we all learned lessons on why it is extremely crucial to take action and steps that limit the spread of viruses. The potential physical impact a virus can have on an individual person ranges from mild to life-threatening and may even be fatal. We witnessed communities that lacked critical access to healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic because the virus spread quickly, creating an influx of patients entering the healthcare continuum while there was a shortage of clinical staff to provide care because they too were contracting the virus. The impacts were also felt beyond the public health sphere; school systems had to evolve to deliver a curriculum virtually, parents had to balance working from home while caring for their children, and companies were forced to define who are essential workers and make difficult decisions on employment. Individual people making preventative decisions to limit the spread of viruses can quickly compound to reducing the risk of community turmoil.
4. What do you find most meaningful about the work you do here at Hagerty, specifically in public health?
Jeff Bokser: I am inspired to work with a truly dedicated team at Hagerty Consulting that looks every day to make a difference in the lives of others. In addition, having the opportunity to work with healthcare organizations, public health departments, and universities across the country, I am amazed by the heroic efforts and innovative solutions that healthcare workers have developed to meet the unique patient needs of the populations in all corners of our country. It is incredibly rewarding to be able to help people and organizations amid crisis and then months later look back and realize how the collective team’s effort played a role in helping people in their most difficult of times.
Gurdeep Singh Nagi: Making a positive impact on communities has always been a guiding principle for me in my career choices, and at Hagerty I have been fortunate to have many opportunities to do so. I have worked with some wonderful clients to drive process and policy that affect change to create an equitable Emergency Medical System (EMS) for an entire state, preparing them to be more resilient for the next major healthcare crisis. At other times I have directly supported hospitals and healthcare systems, including small rural community hospitals, to increase their patient care capacity and infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic response. Regardless of the size of clients I work with, I have always felt that at Hagerty our work has had a positive impact, whether small or profound, on the communities we serve; I have found this to be a fulfilling experience for me.
5. What are you passionate about outside of work?
Jeff Bokser: In my free time, there is nothing more I enjoy doing than being with my family. Whether it is learning pop culture and Tik-Tok dances from my high school sophomore daughter or doing handy work in hanging pictures, shelves, and setting up Wi-Fi for my oldest daughter in her freshman college dorm room, my family keeps me motivated and active. On weekends during warmer weather, I am continuously in pursuit of the “perfect” golf game.
Gurdeep Singh Nagi: Outside of work, I spend time cooking, trying new recipes, and creating dishes that carry tones of my Indian culture. I recently made tandoori tacos with a special mint and cilantro sauce for a party that was a big hit. Next, I’m working on perfecting a burrata, mortadella, and arugula pizza. I try to maintain a healthy lifestyle by setting monthly fitness goals and participating in organized running and cycling races to remain motivated. I’m still learning to swim in order to complete my personal goal of competing in an organized triathlon. I participate in duathlons, but I am looking to make the next jump. I also have an amazing partner, who shares similar professional and personal goals, and her drive helps keep me motivated and experiencing the joys in our life. We also have two great chocolate labs that love to play soccer, go on hikes, and keep us smiling.
Jeff Bokser is Hagerty Consulting’s Vice President of Healthcare and University Programs with strategic expertise in all aspects of healthcare operations, finance, organizational resiliency, institutional preparedness, and recovery. Jeff has over 20 years of experience as a senior leader at New York-Presbyterian and Yale New Haven Health and served as Incident Commander, guiding 40,000+ employees through numerous internal and external emergency response and recovery efforts.
Dr. Gurdeep Singh Nagi, MD MBA, is a Healthcare Administration Professional with over 15 years of combined professional, clinical, operational, and academic experience in the healthcare field. He has expertise in healthcare administration, leadership and change management, grant drafting and acquisition, operations, cost recovery, and regulatory compliance. Dr. Nagi is currently supporting various public health initiatives across the State of California.