Prashila is a vice president and senior fellow in the Health Sciences department and the director of the Health Implementation Science Center at NORC at the University of Chicago. She oversees a broad portfolio of projects in health informatics, patient-centered outcomes research, and implementation science.

Prashila is an expert in the intersection of health information technology (health IT) and policy, and the use of traditional and innovative information technology in health care delivery and research. She led seminal work funded under the HITECH Act to expand the use of electronic health records (EHRs), health information exchange (HIE), and standards; and has deep knowledge and practical experience on the CMS Improving Interoperability Program. Since that time, she has led multiple high-profile studies for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services (CMS).

Prashila leads and serves as senior advisor on NORC’s portfolio of work on patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). These projects emphasize development of the data infrastructure necessary for robust, patient-centered research and evidence generation; and dissemination of research knowledge through technical solutions like clinical decision support in addition to clinician and patient engagement. Prashila also leads NORC’s growing portfolio of implementation science projects to increase the quality, equity, and patient-centeredness of healthcare delivery. These projects focus on large scale patient safety studies and quality improvement initiatives, bringing together cross-disciplinary teams of subject matter experts and researchers in medicine, epidemiology, evaluation, and biostatistics. 

Prashila holds a medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and is the inaugural director of the NORC Health Implementation Science Center. She is a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association; serves on the University of Chicago Masters in Biomedical Informatics Industry Advisory Group; and is a lecturer in their Masters for Medical Informatics program at the Graham Center.