Advisory Board

Chief Executive Officer for Rush University System for Health

K.Ranga Rama Krishnan, MB, ChB, became the second CEO of the Rush University System for Health in May 2019. He previously was the dean of Rush Medical College from October 2015 to May 2019.

Since joining Rush, Krishnan reorganized the college’s curriculum to keep it at the forefront of medical education. Among other features, the new curriculum provides students with prerecorded instructional content. This innovation reduces class time spent on lectures and shifts the emphasis to teams of students collaborating on case studies.

Students also work on state-of-the-art simulators in the Rush Center for Clinical Skills and Simulation. First implemented during the 2017-2018 school year, the revised curriculum helps students develop critical clinical skills earlier, better preparing them to enter residency training after graduation and make an immediate impact on patients.

Krishnan is leading innovation of care delivery throughout the Rush system by organizing providers around patients, diseases and conditions rather than by department or division enabling greater multidisciplinary collaboration. This service line approach empowers providers to share expertise — and, ultimately, improve patient care, quality and safety. Sharing resources allows Rush to operate more efficiently and create an integrated network of care across the system. Krishnan has helped establish the liver, cancer, cardiac, neurology and neurosurgery, and mental health service lines.

In addition, Krishnan has been instrumental in forging key external partnerships, including one with Tempus — a Chicago-based technology company with expertise in gene sequencing and analysis — to search for potentially relevant genetic patterns in cancer patients who are unlikely to respond to conventional therapies. Krishnan has also restructured Rush’s innovation and technology strategy, including the Innovation and Technology Transfer Office, which manages Rush intellectual properties (IP) and assists inventors, authors and other creators of intellectual property at Rush in the process of IP disclosure, protection, marketing and licensing.

He is currently working to launch Rush3D (Design, Demonstrate, Deliver), through which Rush will work with external inventors needing a “sandbox” for exploring opportunities and co-development. Rush3D was created to streamline the interaction of the entire Rush system with external companies needing to leverage the unique capabilities of Rush.

Prior to joining Rush, Krishnan served for eight years as dean of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, a joint venture between Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the National University of Singapore. During his tenure, Duke-NUS developed a new teaching method called Team LEAD (Learn, Engage, Apply, Develop), which has since been adopted by other universities and high schools.

Krishnan arrived at Duke University Medical Center in 1981 where he began a residency in psychiatry followed by a fellowship in neurobiology. He joined the Duke faculty in 1985 and was a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences from 1995 to 2015. As chairman of the department from 1998 until 2009, he implemented an innovative continuing-education network while overseeing more than 490 faculty members.

A native of Madras, India, Krishnan received his medical degree from Madras Medical College in 1978, after which he served a rotating internship at Madras Medical College Government General Hospital. Beginning in 1980, he served as senior house officer at Queen Elizabeth Hospital at the University of West Indies in Barbados.

A member of several editorial boards at various scientific journals, Krishnan has written two books on the art of learning. He authored more than 50 textbook chapters and 450 peer-reviewed papers on the subjects of elderly depression, dementia, Alzheimer’s, panic disorder, bipolar disorder in late life and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

A member of the National Academy of Medicine, Krishnan has received numerous honors and awards, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry; the Edward Strecker Award from the University of Pennsylvania; the research award for mood disorders, 2015, and the research award for geriatric psychiatry 2009, both from the American College of Psychiatry; the Gerald Klerman Award for research in mood disorders from the Depressive and Bipolar Support Alliance, 2002; and the C. Charles Burlingame Award for his lifetime achievements in psychiatric research and education. For his service to Singapore, he received the Public Service Medal from the president of Singapore.

Introducing Dr Dennis Streveler, a computer scientist and medical informaticist who has devoted a half-century to improving the world’s health systems, by applying digitization and computerization to the processes of healthcare – clinical, financial, and social. “We still have a long, long way to go”, he says, “in attempting to reach the same level of efficiency and productivity benefits that other industries have enjoyed for decades now.”

As a global expert in Digital Health, his work in India in the recent 5 years continues after having consulted in more than 70 countries around the globe with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the World Health Organization, GIZ German cooperation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others.

At home, in Hawaii, Dennis is Professor of Medical Informatics at the University of Hawaii where he teaches courses in Systems Design, Medical Informatics, Health Informatics and Nursing Informatics.

Dennis has served as National Technology Projects Manager for Kaiser-Permanente, the USA’s largest Health Maintenance Organization. He also worked in Silicon Valley, including as Chief Strategist for WebMD Corporation perhaps the world’s most successful consumer eHealth information website.

He holds a master’s degree in computer science, and a Ph.D. in Medical Informatics from the University of California medical school.

His vision for India: To deploy Digital Health to “produce better health outcomes for all Indians by rewiring all healthcare stakeholders in India to be more integrated, efficient and collaborative.”

Dr. Vijay V. Yeldandi, M.D., FACP, FCCP, FIDSA is a specialist in infectious diseases with a special interest in disorders of the immune system primarily recipients of transplants. An educator for his entire career. He is board-certified in Infectious Diseases (ABIM, USA) and is currently the head of Infectious Diseases and Public Health at SHARE INDIA www.shareindia.org and a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago www.uihealth.care . His work over the last three decades includes:

(1) laboratory research in antimicrobial resistance and molecular genetics
(2) Translational research in infectious disease diagnostics
(3) Clinical research in transplant infectious diseases; HIV epidemiology
(4) Antimicrobial development and clinical trials
(5) Public Health in India
(6) Infection Prevention and Patient Safety (7) Six Sigma (Black Belt) in health care.

His work in providing technical support to the National AIDS Control Organization of the Ministry of health and family welfare, Government of India has been funded by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:  (2005-2025).

He is a Fullbright Specialist December 2019- December 2022. His work has been recognized by several awards for excellence in teaching and leadership. He is a member of the Community of Practice for  “Implementing Public Policy” Harvard Kennedy School of Government

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Currently, a senior adviser on Social Health Insurance in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jack Langenbrunner focuses on the financial impact of healthcare for the poor and vulnerable. As a health economist, he has extensive experience working on health financing issues in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Previously, he was an officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a lead health economist for the World Bank. Before that he worked at the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. In the mid-1990s Langenbrunner served on the Clinton Health Care Reform Task Force for the U.S. White House. The author of multiple books and articles, he holds master’s and doctorate degrees in Public Policy/Economics and Health Policy from the University of Michigan.