Rush Health

Several individuals from Rush Health have made enormous contributions throughout the pandemic:

Rush University Medical Center, Chicago

• Robert Balk, Director of Critical Care and Pulmonary Medicine, ICU attending, has been instrumental in every way to the organization's COVID-19 response. Balk never failed to “rally the troops” when more than 100 critical care patients were admitted at once. For weeks on end he led by example through his work as an intensivist.
• Richa Gupta, MD, Chief Operating Officer, has been called the heart and soul of the hospital's COVID response. Dr. Gupta led the command center day after day, tirelessly considering every opportunity to support staff and help care for patients. Her level of organization and compassion has inspired 12,000 employees. Dr. Gupta worked 45 days straight until colleagues convinced her to take a day off—yet she still called in to meetings.
• Jennifer Orozco, Director of Advanced Practice Providers, led efforts to organize and deploy advanced practice providers to care for the sickest COVID patients across the organization. Her tireless work was instrumental in organizing all providers, as well as organizing testing of more than 100,000 community members. Special note: Governor Pritzker recognized Orozco in his Dec. 11 COVID-19 briefing.

Rush Health is a Chicago-based academic health system with three hospitals in the Chicago region.