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Richard Della Penna, MD, brings more than 32 years of medical experience to Independa as Chief Medical Officer. He was a physician with Kaiser Permanente from 1977 until November 2009. From 1999 until 2009 he was on the staff of the Permanente Federation and the Care Management Institute in Oakland, California. During that time he held the positions of Medical Director of the Kaiser Permanente Aging Network and the National Clinical Lead for Elder and Palliative Care. In these roles, Dr. Della Penna collaborated with Kaiser’s regional elder clinical care leaders and Kaiser Health Plan’s Medicare leadership in strategic efforts to improve the care of Kaiser’s nearly one million older adult members. His clinical and care improvement activities have focused on depression, dementia, interdisciplinary team training, long term care, transitional care, and palliative care.

He is a member of the Veteran Administration’s National Geriatrics and Gerontology Advisory Commission and was on the Board of Directors of the National Alzheimer’s Association from 2005 thru 2013. He is a member of the advisory board of the Practice Change Fellow Program, which provides leadership training to early and mid career physicians, social workers and nurses specializing in geriatrics and gerontology. He is the 2010 recipient of UCLA’s David H. Solomon Award, which recognizes influential leaders in the field of Geriatrics.

Della Penna earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of the Holy Cross, M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine and was an Intern and Resident at Harvard Medical Service, Boston City Hospital.