Parisa '
Parisa "Risa" Vatanka, PharmD

Co-founder & CEO of Digital.Health

“We are a digital health ecosystem on a mission to foster democratization of health care leveraging digitally enabled care that augments the human touch. Join us to Learn. Share. Care. as we come together as a community bringing our unique perspectives and talent to collectively work toward a singular mission of contributing to a more equitable, healthier society.” – Risa Vatanka

 

Risa brings 20+ years of health care experience to the Digital.Health team. From front-line clinical work, academia, diagnostics, corporate to leading efforts within the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) to bring digital to the forefront of pharmacy and the broader health and biomedical ecosystem.  Risa is an inspirational leader and strategic thinker with experience creating novel health care delivery solutions from concept to marketplace.  She has a proven record of alliance building and is a key contributor and facilitator with keen ability to bridge efforts among diverse internal and external cross-functional groups. Her background includes heading high-visibility initiatives implemented nationwide and globally.

Champion of health care delivery optimization through DIGITAL HEALTH integration:



  • Founder & Chair, DigitalHealth.Rx Summit: interprofessional digital health conference with world renowned speakers/health-tech innovators and participants from around the globe – hosted by APhA
  • Founder & Chair, DigitalHealth.Rx Hackathon – interprofessional global innovation event to ideate and prototype solutions to address health care’s grand challenges with participants across fifteen diverse majors such as medicine, pharmacy, nursing, computer science, technology, user-centered design – hosted by APhA
  • Served on the Digital Medicine Society's (DiMe) Tour of Duty to drive adoption of The Digital Clinical Measures Playbook - and led development of The Micro-Playbook for Pharmacists
  • Reviewer, Digital Therapeutics Alliance’s (DTA) DTx Value Assessment & Integration Guide
  • Creator & Editor, Digital Health Corner
  • Founder & Chair, Digital Health Conference (DHX) – first-of-its-kind interprofessional digital health conference with a focus on catalyzing digitally enabled care at scale with a team-based approach integrating pharmacy practice and pharmacists – hosted by the California Pharmacists Association (CPhA)
  • Advisory Board Member, Digital Health Institute and Digital Health Workshop both designed to foster integration of digital health into pharmacy and interprofessional curriculum, co-curricular activities, experiential and post-graduate training to graduate the next generation of digitally savvy health care providers – hosted by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP)
  • Associate Clinical Professor, University of California San Francisco (UCSF); contribute to pharmacy and interprofessional curriculum, conducted practice-based research, and serve in UCSF Fontana Tobacco Treatment Center (in-person and telehealth)


Risa is a graduate of the University of Kansas, School of Pharmacy. Her professional training includes completing a post-graduate Pharmacy Practice Residency at UCSF, an Executive Administrative Pharmacy Residency at Stanford University, and two externships with the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Indian Health Service (IHS). Risa is a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist (CTTS), trained at the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center. These experiences instilled in Risa an appreciation of the tremendous value of an interprofessional, patient-centered approach to care to foster health promotion and disease prevention, ultimately contributing to a healthier society.

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