MHA Candidate Prasana Ruxmohan Uses Own Experiences to Inspire Progressive Change in Health Care System

Master of Health Administration candidate Prasana Ruxmohan has always felt the call to change the landscape of health care.

From an early age, Ruxmohan witnessed first-hand the disparities across health care, and the importance of courageous engagement with the system. Now, inspired to help people as they navigate the complex health care environment, Ruxmohan is plotting a course for change.

I am committed to bridging the gap in patient care and creating innovative infrastructures to have a long-lasting impact on different populations, especially those who are particularly underrepresented or come from lower socioeconomic status,” she said.

Her focus thus far in her academic and professional career has been producing innovative solutions and business models resulting in higher care value, operational efficiency, and maximum financial performance.

While obtaining her bachelor's in health care management from the University of Texas at Dallas, and while pursuing her M.H.A. at Saint Louis University, Ruxmohan has helped put several strategies and initiatives into place at health systems across the Midwest and in India.

As a Global Health Medical intern at the Dinbandhu Charitable Hospital located in Surat, Gujrat in India, she created a process improvement dashboard and evaluation forms to help analyze clinical improvements for physicians and nurses.

“Seeing and working with critically sick people every day strengthened my drive to help those who are not only less fortunate, but also those who struggle to navigate through tough situations within a complicated health care system,” she said. “To say the least, India and their health care system fundamentally changed my perspective when thinking about health care.”

Ruxmohan has recognized the need for these improvements on multiple scales.

During a volunteer stint in a nursery while creating beds for newborns, booking patients and creating welcome packages, she was met with some harsh realities of what some patients endure.

“On one end, the mothers would receive all the educational materials to have a healthy recovery. While on the other end, some mothers barely even got a single paper of how to have a safe recovery,” she said.

Seeing the national maternal mortality rates rising and the glaring need to address maternal care, her experience and takeaway was profound, as she worried if she could be doing more.

Working with the Advocacy in Maternal Health (AIM) project, she helped implement a navigator model structure to guide mothers to valuable resources already existing via an app.

“That was the biggest challenge I faced with myself, posing questions: if I could have been more vocal, asked more people to step in, etc. This fueled my passion within health care administration.”

This Summer, Ruxmohan worked in the Emerging Strategies department at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern as an Emerging Strategies intern and discovered her passion for digital technology.

“I truly began to understand the impact data-driven solutions have on patients’ experiences, health care institutions, and overall health outcomes,” she said. “Over the course of my internship, I aided in redesigning staffing models, working on in-basket alerts, and to operationalize remote patient monitoring.”

Now equipped with a tool belt of skills and knowledge, Ruxmohan is poised to change the landscape of health care in a way that helps patients make informed decisions and drives innovation.

“As health care continues to evolve and change, our leaders of the future will have increased responsibility for creating broader partnerships, driving innovation and maximizing new technological solutions to better connect our communities,” she said. “I know that lowering and managing health care costs is critical; but if health care is not accessible or navigable, it will not be successful. I personally believe that helping individuals make the right decisions for themselves is what our health care system needs to focus on.”

College for Public Health and Social Justice

The Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice is the only academic unit of its kind, studying social, environmental and physical influences that together determine the health and well-being of people and communities. It also is the only accredited school or college of public health among nearly 250 Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States.

Guided by a mission of social justice and focus on finding innovative and collaborative solutions for complex health problems, the College offers nationally recognized programs in public health, social work, health administration, applied behavior analysis, and criminology and criminal justice.