Rasu B. Shrestha, M.D., M.B.A., is Enterprise Executive Vice President & Chief Innovation and Commercialization Officer for Advocate Health, one of the largest non-profit and leading academic health systems in the United States. As a member of the executive leadership team, Dr Shrestha is responsible for Advocate Health’s enterprise innovation portfolio, including strategic industry partnerships, and Advocate Health’s strategic investment fund. In addition, he spearheads a renewed focus on commercialization, launching new healthcare inventions, discoveries and ideas to benefit our patients and the communities Advocate Health serves, and beyond.
Dr Shrestha has nearly 30 years of industry experience as a transformative physician leader experienced in delivering results across strategy, innovation, health information technology, marketing, communications, strategic investments and commercialization. He joined Advocate Health, as part of Atrium Health, in January 2019 as EVP and Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer, leading the strategic transformation of the organization and was charged with the creation and implementation of IMPACT 2025, a bold multi-year enterprise strategic plan for the growing health system that includes key priorities such as operational excellence & path to value, environmental sustainability, innovations & partnerships, and growth, integrated scale & influence. Dr Shrestha was previously with UPMC where he led the payor-provider organization’s innovation and strategy, and built the industry’s largest and most successful innovation, commercialization and venture capital engine. In addition to leading innovation at UPMC, Dr Shrestha also served as executive vice president of UPMC Enterprises.
Dr. Shrestha is a respected thought leader and visionary with a strong track record of growth and impact, and a strong champion of a culture of growth and transformation. He was recently recognized as “Executive of the Year” by Healthcare Dive and was acknowledged as one of the “Top 20 Health IT Leaders Driving Change” and as a “Top Healthcare Innovator” by InformationWeek. In addition, he is on the Board of Directors of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and is the Chairman of the HIMSS Innovation Committee. Dr Shrestha is also on the Board of Directors of Academy Health, based out of Washington DC, the leading national catalyst at the intersection of public, private and policy. He was the past Co-chair of Health Datapalooza and is still actively engaged in catalyzing change through data, policy and action. Additionally, Dr Shrestha is also on the Board of Directors of US Radiology, the nation’s premier partnership of physician-owned radiology practices and diagnostic imaging centers, and on the founding board of ML Bio, an innovative biotechnology company developing BBP-418, potentially the first oral treatment for patients with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2i. Dr Shrestha is also on the Board of Directors Advisory Council for Premier Inc, a national GPO that was one of the first companies to translate the purchasing power of a healthcare alliance into significant cost savings. He was recently a board member and Treasurer at the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) and serves on the Board of the Blumenthal Performing Arts.
Dr. Shrestha was the youngest student in his college in Malaysia and received his medical degree from CCS University in India. He went on to complete his training in radiology and then his fellowship in informatics at the University of London. He also earned an MBA at USC’s Marshall School of Business.