Dr. Patel is Director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit, the world’s first behavioral design team embedded within a health system. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management at the Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Patel is on faculty at the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation and the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, and is a Staff Physician at the Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia. His research focuses on combining insights from behavioral economics with scalable technology platforms to improve health and health care. He has led more than 20 clinical trials in partnership with health systems, insurers, employers, and community organizations that tested ways to design nudges, incentives, and gamification to change clinician and patient behavior. This work includes digital health interventions using wearable devices and smartphones, and health system interventions using the electronic health record.
Dr. Patel is Co-Director of the Wharton M.B.A. Course on E-Health and the Perelman School of Medicine Course on Health Care Systems. He has received a Career Development Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs and a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Dr. Patel’s work has been published in leading medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Health Affairs. His work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the New York Times, NBC Today Show, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, Bloomberg, Time, NPR and CNN.