Biography
Dr. Christian Arbelaez is the Endowed Chair in Innovation in Exceptional Care in Emergency Medicine, Chief of Emergency Services at Boston Medical Center, and Professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.
Over his 25-year professional career, Dr. Arbelaez has had a successful track record in leading patient-centered teams through transformational change while maintaining engagement and a thriving culture. At BMC, Dr. Arbelaez leads one of the busiest academic safety-net ED’s in the country providing emergency care to over 130,000 patients a year. Given the significant challenges facing our healthcare systems, he guided the team through the COVID pandemic, financial and capacity constraints, workplace violence and workforce shortages, and complex care needs for the most vulnerable patient populations in the city of Boston. Under his leadership, he contributed to an improvement in the CMS stars rating by decreasing the LWBS rate from 12% to 6%; improving patient throughput times by leveraging lean process improvement and innovation; growing revenue by $11M with a favorable margin, positive balance sheet, and physician productivity index of 1.04; raising $5M in philanthropic funds with the 1st Endowed Chair at BMC and $10M for a new acute care pod; and maintaining competitive physician compensation and AAMC compensation index. In 2023, he convened and hosted the 1st Leaders of Essential Emergency Departments conference in Boston bringing together 15 academic safety net EDs to discuss the challenges facing emergency services after COVID.
His leadership and communication style are servant and collaborative with a Triad model that is required for complex, matrixed organizations. His management approach is to engage system thinking, strategic agility, influence across units, data-driven, and strong financial control. At the departmental level, he led the strategic planning process and new pod design; and in crisis, through the Omicron surge, an ED flooding evacuation, and financial turn-around with a focus on patients, team, process, metrics, and clear communication. His hospital, health system, and board level experiences, include in multiple key leadership search committees, steering committees for Hospital at Home and Vizient, BMC Quality and Patients Safety Board, Captive risk co-insurance, and BUMG corporate board.
His academic career is focused health equity particularly in vulnerable patient populations in the US and abroad through the development of programs and partnerships aimed at advancing emergency care and public health systems. He holds Honorary Faculty appointments at the Universidad de Antioquia (Medellin) and Universidad Javeriana (Bogota) in Colombia. He was elected as a Fulbright Specialist.
Prior to joining BMC, Arbelaez served as the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs at Brown Emergency Medicine and held several physician leadership roles at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Arbelaez completed the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard University, the Hispanic Mid-Career Executive Leadership Fellowship from the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA)/NYU Wagner School of Public Service Leadership Center, and the Executive Education Certificate Program from the Brigham Physician Leadership program at Harvard Business School.
He has received numerous awards including the Dennis Thomson and James Adams Leadership Awards at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; the Young Mentor Award at Harvard Medical School; the YMCA Achievers Award from the YMCA Greater Boston, the “Inspirador” Alumni Hall of Fame Award Hispanic Scholarship Fund; the Inaugural Leadership in Diversity & Inclusion Award from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine; the International Ambassador Leadership Award from the American College of Emergency Physicians; and the 2025 Boston Magazine Top Doctors.
Dr. Arbelaez earned his Medical Doctorate degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and Master of Public Health degree from the Chan Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his Residency and Chief Residency in Emergency Medicine at Brown University.