2022-23 Linde Fellows

Meet Our 2022-23 Fellows

Anita Erler, MDAnita Erler, MD

Medical Director, Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care, Peabody

Dr. Erler is the medical director of the BILH primary care practice in Peabody. She has been seeing patients at this practice since 1997, and has been the medical director since 2021. She is a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, and completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Lahey Hospital Medical Center.

Dr. Erler's Linde project will address improving metrics of the Diabetes Bundle of the patients at the Peabody practice involving improving A1c, BP control, and timely annual eye exams. She will focus on a team approach to achieve this goal, with POC A1c testing, EMR smart sets, and education for patients with pharmacotherapy referrals as well as to providers with evidence based recommendations.


Spencer Rittner, MDSpencer Rittner, MD

Medical Director of Population Health Management, BILH Primary Care

Dr. Rittner is a fellowship-trained and board-certified Family Medicine physician. He practices primary care at Beth Israel Lahey Health Family Medicine of Brookline and currently serves as the Medical Director of Population Health Management at Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care.

Spencer earned a BS in Biology at Brandeis University and continued his medical education at Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed his Family Medicine residency at Cambridge Health Alliance and a fellowship in quality improvement at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). During his time at IHI, he worked on the 100 Million Healthier Lives Campaign SCALE initiative, helped create a toolkit to support organizations in improving specific population health metrics, completed the Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program, and developed a quality infrastructure driver diagram for primary care.

Over the past four years at Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care, Spencer has helped to lead the organization’s population health strategy, co-managed the population health specialist team, and partnered the Beth Israel Lahey Health Performance Network on multiple initiatives. He also serves as Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care group visit lead, develops several CME initiatives across primary care, and co-leads the Primary Care Patient and Family Advisory Council. Spencer is also a Medical Director of the CRICO Ambulatory Safety Net grant.

Dr. Rittner’s Linde Fellowship Project will focus on broadening the data presented to the primary care teams from risk-only patient data to all patients, regardless of insurance. Expanding to all patient data will ensure equitable patient access to high-quality care. He aims to have the all-patient data displayed on a population health dashboard that is readily available to the primary care teams.


Elissa Stecker, MDElissa Stecker, MD

Medical Director, Mount Auburn Healthcare at Waltham

Dr. Stecker has been a primary care physician at Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care – Waverley Oaks Road for approximately nine years, and she has been serving as the Medical Director of the practice since October 2020.

Dr. Stecker graduated medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA in 2010. She completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA in 2013 and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine. In addition to her work in clinical medicine, Dr. Stecker served in a leadership role as the Director of Clinical Operations for Mount Auburn Professional Services (MAPS) during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to work closely with the BILH Mount Auburn Regional Operations team. She also serves as a representative on the BILH Primary Care Leadership Council and the Mount Auburn Hospital Community Benefits Advisory Committee.

Through her work with as a Linde Fellow, Dr. Stecker strives to enhance patient access, patient satisfaction and care team experience by introducing RN/MD Co-visits to our primary care repertoire. These visits are initiated by our RNs, who are then joined by the physician to cooperatively form a plan of care for the patient. Team-based care allows greater patient access by providing highly efficient and effective quality care while reducing the physician face-to-face time required, thereby allowing additional scheduled co-visit slots. Co-visits create an opportunity for the primary care RN to diversify their role from predominantly triage based to include direct patient care while enhancing their job satisfaction.


Alexa Triot, MDAlexa Triot, MD

Assistant Medical Director, Healthcare Associates

Dr. Triot is a primary care physician at Healthcare Associates, the primary care practice at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). She received her MD from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine; she completed residency and served as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at BIDMC. She currently serves as an Assistant Medical Director at Healthcare Associates, and is a Patient Safety Core Faculty member for the Stoneman Quality Improvement and Safety elective for internal medicine residents.

Early in Dr. Triot's career at Healthcare Associates, she recognized the importance of weight management in providing high quality primary care. She subsequently became board certified in Obesity Medicine in 2020. She is eager to bring weight management services to the entire practice by designing and piloting an embedded weight management clinic with an accompanying clinical pathway within Healthcare Associates.