Columbus Batiste, MD FACC FSCAI is Chief of Cardiology for Kaiser Permanente Riverside and Moreno Valley Medical Centers, and was co-founder in 2011 and continues as Director of the Integrative Cardiovascular Disease Program at Kaiser Permanente Riverside.  He earned his Doctorate in Medicine at Loma Linda University Medical School, and is a board-certified Internist, Cardiologist and Interventional Cardiologist.  He also serves as an Assistant Clinical Professor at University of California Riverside School of Medicine, and as Medical Director of Southern California Permanente Medical Group Regional Home-Based Cardiac Rehab.  He received the Kaiser Permanente Physician Exceptional Contribution Award in 2017 and the NAACP Community Health Service Award in 2016.

Though Dr. Batiste has performed nearly 2,000 coronary interventions and hundreds of pacemaker implantations, he became profoundly convinced that cardiovascular disease as well as stroke, hypertension and diabetes are preventable conditions, and he also saw that these major causes of death in the United States disproportionately affected African Americans.  He came to be known as the "Healthy Heart Doc", and has long been a strong advocate for use of plant-based diets, exercise and stress reduction as key lifestyle components for health promotion and patient empowerment.  Since 2010 he has lectured across the United States, organizing local community health initiatives, cooking classes, and one-on-one coaching apart from his regular medical practice.  He is co-founder of the "Slave Food" project, documenting the racial dimensions of health care disparities in the U.S., and he was featured in the celebrated documentary The Game Changers.  He says that his sole goal is to educate so that “each one can teach one” about the power of health promoting foods in the form of plant based natural food sources, combined with activity, sleep and gratitude, in striving for a Healthy Heart Nation.