Dr. Rivadelo Tamondong-Lachica’s work centers around providing safe and quality health care for patients from all over. She is a prime mover of the Program for Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety, a flagship program of the UP College of Medicine, that led a multi-million project that assists the Department of Health (DOH), PhilHealth, and other stakeholders in formulating evidence-based policies and standards for hospitals to unify strategies and programs on patient safety nationwide towards clear and common targets.  She is leading the formulation of clinical practice guidelines on Lifestyle Interventions that is expected to be the first in her country and explicitly designed to help providers and patients in lower resource areas. She has served as a consultant for the DOH on several occasions, sharing her expertise on evidence-based medicine (EBM), public health, and health policy. As an educator, she emphasizes the value of lifelong learning to her students and the importance of EBM to be able to give the best care to patients. As a researcher, she has published numerous manuscripts since 2013 on the impact of the quality of care provided to patient outcomes in the United States and other countries.

Apart from her passion in patient safety and quality of care, she is a stern advocate for Primary Care – an important component of Universal Health Care. With strong primary care, patients are not left to navigate care by themselves and ensures that each Filipino is assigned to a healthcare provider.  Her involvement with the Philippine Society for General Internal Medicine (PSGIM) as its Board of Trustee for 7 years and President for 4 years, has the paved the way for her to pursue this Primary Care advocacy. PSGIM is an organization of about 500 general internists that is dedicated to the assurance of competent, compassionate and holistic care for adult Filipino whose mandate is to advocate General Internal Medicine and Primary Care as viable practice and as a core medical competency. She is a part of the DOH’s Drug Price Advisory Council (DPAC), the one of the youngest in that group, to advise the government on how to reduce the prices of essential medicines.  Her work in DPAC paved the way for the signing of Executive Order No.104 on the Maximum Drug Retail Price last February 2020 that cut the prices of 133 drug molecules by as much as 58%.