Beyond Flexner 2015 Insights: Rishi Manchanda

Dr. Rishi Manchanda is President and Founder of HealthBegins, a startup that transforms the
health of vulnerable communities through innovative education, technology, and consultancy
services. As an ‘upstreamist’ physician and public health innovator, his work and expertise focuses on systems design to improve primary care, the social and environmental conditions that make people sick, and health and human rights. Dr. Manchanda serves as the medical director of a clinic for high-utilizer homeless veterans in Los Angeles. He is also the founder of RxDemocracy, a nonpartisan healthcare coalition that supports civic engagement and that has registered 30,000 voters in clinics nationwide. He previously served as the founding Director of Social Medicine at St.John’s Well Child and Family Centers, a community clinic in South Central Los Angeles. His first book The Upstream Doctors, in which he coins the term “Upstreamist” to describe an essential yet underdeveloped segment of the healthcare workforce, was released by TEDBooks in June 2013. Upstreamists are clinic-based practitioners who have the skills, tools, and authority to drive internal healthcare innovation that improves care and local social determinants of health.