Dr. Rishi Manchanda is a physician, author, and healthcare leader who has spent more than a decade developing novel strategies to improve health in resource-poor communities. He has served as director of social medicine for a network of community health centers in South-Central Los Angeles, as the lead primary care physician for homeless veterans at the Greater Los Angeles VA, and as chief medical officer for a self-insured employer with a large rural immigrant workforce. In his 2013 TED Book, The Upstream Doctors, and 2014 TED Talk, he introduced readers and viewers to the Upstreamists, a new model of healthcare workers who improve care by addressing patients’ health-related social needs, such as food, financial, and housing insecurity. The talk has been viewed nearly 2 million times, and the book has become recommended reading in medical schools and universities across the world.
