Baligh Yehia

Dr. Baligh Yehia is the Former Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Community Care at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the nation’s largest integrated health care system caring for over 8.5 million Veterans at 1,700+ sites across the country. As the Former Chief Executive of VA Community Care, Dr. Yehia led VA in its transformational journey to provide Veterans with easy access to personalized care from a robust network of federal and private providers. Committed to improving the patient experience, Dr. Yehia drove initiatives focused on clinical integration, quality improvement, and system redesign.

Dr. Yehia oversaw VA’s Community Care Network, which includes over 445,000 federal, academic, and private partners who deliver outpatient, inpatient, extended care, teleheath, and home care services to over 1.5 million Veterans annually. Over the course of his tenure, VA has expanded the number of network providers, increased access to community care, and introduced new programs emphasizing quality improvement and clinical integration. In addition, Dr. Yehia directed VA’s revenue operations, which generate over $3 billion in revenue to care for Veterans annually, and VA's family and dependent programs, which serve over 350,000 beneficiaries each year.

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Yehia served as Senior Advisor on Health to the Secretary, where he provided leadership on strategies related to the health and wellbeing of Veterans and improving performance at VA’s 1,700+ healthcare facilities, including hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing homes, and readjustment counseling centers. He spearheaded the Department’s involvement in key federal and private sector efforts focused on health, including implementation of health delivery system reform.

A nationally recognized expert in HIV medicine and health equality, Dr. Yehia has published over 150 articles, abstracts, chapters, and white papers in leading journals. He has made important contributions to the understanding of patient engagement in healthcare, and individual and environmental factors influencing access to and participation in care.

Dr. Yehia is dedicated to improving the quality of healthcare delivery, and has served in top leadership positions on numerous boards and councils. Currently, he represents VA on the Board of Directors of the Center for Medical Interoperability, a cooperative research and development lab founded by health systems to simplify and advance data sharing among medical technologies and systems. He is a former member of the American College of Physicians Board of Regents, the American Medical Association Council on Medical Education, and the Maryland State Medical Society Board of Trustees. In addition, he is a past Chair of the American Medical Association Resident and Fellow Section, the nation’s largest association of resident and fellow physicians.

Nationally recognized as a leader in healthcare, Dr. Yehia has received the John D. Chase Award for Executive Excellence, Walter J. McDonald Award for Outstanding Achievement from the American College of Physicians, American Medical Association Foundation Leadership Award, Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Microbiology, Robert Austrian Award in Infectious Diseases from the University of Pennsylvania, and the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from his alma mater.

Dr. Yehia is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. He received his bachelor and medical degrees from the University of Florida, completed internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and infectious diseases fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a Masters in Public Policy from Princeton University and Masters of Science in Health Policy Research from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Senior Fellow at the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives, and Fellow of the American College of Physicians.