5/19/2025 – Dr. Ralph Alvarado, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health

Ralph Alvarado, MD, FACP, joined Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s cabinet in January 2023 as the 15^th commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health.

Dr. Alvarado has spent a decade in public service and in 2014 was the first Hispanic member elected to the Kentucky General Assembly where he represented Kentucky’s 28^th Senate district.

Dr. Alvarado has been a practicing physician for the past 29 years, working in a variety of clinical settings, as a small town primary care physician, a hospitalist and continues to see patients at skilled nursing facilities. Dr. Alvarado has served as medical director for Medicare health plan operators Stableview Health and Signature Advantage, in Lexington, Ky.; as medical director and finance chairman for Kentucky One Health Medical Group, in Louisville, Ky.; and, as vice-chairman of the board of an accountable care organization, Quality Independent Physicians, also in Louisville.

From 2009 to 2011, Dr. Alvarado was chief and medical staff president at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Lexington, Ky., and was elected as the physician representative to the hospital’s board in 2010, serving until 2012.