Kavitha Bhatia, MD, MMM, FAAP
Chair and President, Prime Healthcare Foundation
Chief Medical Officer of Strategy
Kavitha Bhatia, MD, is the Chair and President of the Prime Healthcare
Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity dedicated to improving
healthcare through its hospitals and educational and charitable initiatives.
Fifteen of Prime Healthcare’s 46 hospitals are members of the Prime
Healthcare Foundation which provide quality healthcare, philanthropy and
service to communities. The Prime Healthcare Foundation has provided more
than $2 billion in charity care and sponsored local and global initiatives
to forward its mission of improving the lives of others through healthcare
and education. The Prime Healthcare Foundation, through a $60 million
donation, established the California University of Science and Medicine
(CUSM), a private, non-profit medical school in Southern California in
2018 with a mission to advance medicine, improve the health of communities
and inspire service in underserved areas.
Dr. Bhatia serves as Founding Vice Chair of the CUSM Board of Trustees.
She also serves advisory roles on the State and National level having
been chosen as a Board member of the California Hospital Association (CHA)
and Governing Board member of the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH)
and Member of the FAH’s national Quality and Emergency Preparedness
committees.She has also led the Prime Healthcare system through the COVID-19
Pandemic as Co-Chair of both the National COVID Committee and COVID 24/7
Command Center.
In addition to her role as Chair of the Prime Healthcare Foundation, Dr.
Bhatia also serves as the first Chief Medical Officer of Strategy for
Prime Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest health systems, where
she leads strategic innovation, system-wide value creation and excellence
initiatives. Dr. Bhatia has been recognized among the nation’s physician
leaders earning “100 CMOs to Know” in Becker’s Hospital
Review in 2020, “Top Pediatrician” by Top Women in Medicine
and selected for the Los Angeles Business Journal's prestigious "Top
Women Leaders in Healthcare" in 2020 and "Top Doctor" award in 2021.
Committed to improving the health and lives of others, Dr. Bhatia is a
dedicated philanthropist. Her experiences have been broad, caring for
the sick and dying in the slums of Calcutta to teaching inner city youth.
For her work with the Missionaries of Charity, Dr. Bhatia was awarded
a Miraculous Medallion with Mother Teresa. She has served in advisory
roles for national and global causes such as the World Children’s
Initiative and Project Heart Uganda. Dr. Bhatia is also the Executive
Director of the Dr. Prem Reddy Family Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit
charitable organization dedicated to improving healthcare and providing
educational opportunities which include annual scholarship programs for
underserved students and educational grants.
Dr. Bhatia graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa scholar with a Bachelor of Science
in Physiology and Neuroscience. She earned her medical degree from the
UCLA School of Medicine, consistently ranked among the nation’s
best medical schools (#6) where she graduated with Honors and Letters
of Distinction in Doctoring. Dr. Bhatia also holds a Certificate in Healthcare
Strategy from Harvard Business School and has earned a Masters of Medical
Management from the USC Marshall School of Business. Dr. Bhatia is a Fellow
of the American Academy of Pediatrics and has been a scholar at world-renowned
institutions such as Mass General, Boston Children’s Hospital and
the All India Institute of Medicine.