Mitesh S. Patel, MD, MBA is a physician executive at the forefront of leading innovative strategic initiatives with multidisciplinary teams to transform health and health care. He is the world’s leading expert on using behavioral nudges to improve clinical care and population health. He has managed 75+ person teams that pioneered the use of new technologies such as digital health devices, EHR apps, predictive analytics, and texting chatbots to rapidly improve outcomes while reducing costs. He has implemented 100+ programs that improved operations and outcomes at complex organizations in the health care, insurance, biopharma and technology industries.

Currently, Dr. Patel is the Chief Clinical Transformation Officer and National Vice President at Ascension, one of the largest non-profit health system in the US. In this role, he is the executive lead for the strategic vision and operational implementation of national programs to transform clinical care including programs that focus on patient engagement, artificial intelligence, virtual care, remote patient monitoring and digital health. This work includes managing a $10 million annual budget and multiple teams comprising 75+ FTEs.

Dr. Patel was previously the Ralph Muller Presidential Professor (with tenure) at the Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the Founding Director of the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit, the world’s first behavioral design team embedded within a health system. In this role, he led more than 25 clinical trials and raised more than $10 million in grant funding. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at The Wharton School and teaches an MBA course on The Digital Transformation of Health Care.
Dr. Patel is also Founder of Catalyst Health, a behavior change and technology consulting firm that runs The Virtual Nudge Unit (VNU). VNU provides consulting, technology and executive education to Fortune 500 companies in biopharma, healthcare, insurance, and technology.

Dr. Patel is regular keynote speaker and has received national awards from the American College of
Physicians, AcademyHealth, ASCI, and SGIM. He has published 150+ journal articles in leading journals such as NEJM, JAMA, Nature, and PNAS. His work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the New York Times, NBC Today Show, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, Forbes, Time, NPR and CNN.