Pediatric Section Chief Tori Bahr, MD, is a 2024 Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal (MSPBJ) 40 Under 40 winner.
The magazine’s annual honor recognizes Bahr’s passion for caring for children with special needs and leadership in creating a better healthcare system for these patients as they become adults.
The editorial team at MSPBJ selected 40 local leaders — from hundreds of nominations — who are under the age of 40, recognizing their professional accomplishments, community involvement and industry leadership.
Bahr is well known for her advocacy of focusing on transition care for patients with special needs. “My goal in this work is to continue to advocate for our responsibility to improve our patients’ lives and to create a more inclusive and equitable healthcare transition process,” Bahr says.
Medical schools have not routinely trained physicians who will care for adults to study certain conditions, such as cerebral palsy, because children with these conditions did not live into adulthood. As care for these children and youth continues to improve, the need to focus on transitional care becomes more evident, Bahr says. Today she is using her expertise to lead this work in many ways:
- She co-leads Gillette Children's Transition Task Force and Transition Initiatives, active multidisciplinary groups seeking to transform the care we provide to our Gillette patients.
- She created a transition clinic in the complex care clinic at Gillette in order to support individual patients in finding a comprehensive, effective healthcare team.
- At the University of Minnesota, she created a transition workshop and leads education days for medical residents, including the Internal Medicine, MedPeds and Pediatric programs.
- She created a Twin Cities Inpatient Transition QI Group and is a medical advisor and facilitator for the Disabled Not Disposable: A Health Equity CME (Continuing Medical Education) Conference.
Dr. Bahr’s early work in transitional care was supported by a donation from The Kathy and Tom Miller Family Foundation.
- She co-leads the Gillette Children’s Children and Youth with Special Health Needs Health Care Transition Learning Collaborative, a groundbreaking project supported by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Health and a grant from the COPIC Medical Foundation.