September 2021

Dr. Ellen Air of the CNS Leadership Institute talks with Dr. Stephen Ondra about lessons he has learned on strategic planning

Since his early career as a military surgeon, Dr. Stephen L. Ondra has been on a mission to improve health care in the United States and around the world.

Dr. Ondra is the CEO of Cygnus-AI Inc.  A company specializing in artificial intelligence and clinical decision support tools for diagnostic radiology.  He is also the founder of North Star Healthcare Consulting LLC, which advises large corporations, government and an array of mid-size and small companies that span the healthcare space.  Dr. Ondra has served as Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer at Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), the nation’s largest non-investor-owned health insurance company, as Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and as the Senior Policy Advisor for Health Affairs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He also served at the White House in the Executive Office of President Barack Obama, where he was the co-Chair of the National Science and Technology Council for Health Information Technology, a member of the Federal Health Information Technology Policy and Standards Committees and a member of the Implementation Deputy Group for the Affordable Care Act.