The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education has named Constance S. Sixta as vice president for quality and assurance.

Sixta is very familiar with the mission, vision and core values of The Wright Center after serving as a quality improvement consultant for population health, care management, referral management and care compacts at the regional health care and workforce development provider for more than 10 years. She initially acted as director of the Pennsylvania Chronic Care Initiative in which she collaborated with executive leadership at The Wright Center in successfully implementing chronic disease management.

Over the next couple of years, she worked more directly with The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education and the American Medical Association Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement and the state Department of Health on the first national collaborative directed at closing the referral loop between primary care and specialist practices. Known as the “Closing the Referral Loop,” the initiative improved referral timeliness and report receipts between specialists and primary care providers in community practices throughout Northeast Pennsylvania.

Most recently, Sixta worked in partnership with The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education in the implementation of quality improvement strategies, care management implementation, and the Resident and Fellow Population Management Course.

In this new role, she will work collaboratively across departments and services to ensure that clinical practices and clinical education are operating at the highest level of quality. The vice president will co-create workflow improvements and educational opportunities with executives in the clinical and educational pillars of the Wright Center and own innovations and sustainable improvement efforts, particularly around issues relating to continuum of patient care, enterprise-wide training in quality processes, quality oversight, population health and enterprise quality improvement, including Plan Do Study Acts (PDSAs) and safe reports.

“I have witnessed the great work being done by administration, management, providers, staff, residents and fellows across the organization, as we care for populations of special concern that experience disparate socioeconomic status,” Sixta said. “I have enjoyed working with everyone here. Most importantly, though, I have the utmost respect for The Wright Center’s mission of improving the health and well-being of our communities through inclusive and responsive health services and the sustainable renewal of an inspired, competent workforce that is privileged to serve.”

A well-recognized leader in quality improvement activities, Sixta’s experience ranges from the improvement of patient flow in large hospital systems to transformation of primary care practices to the enhancement of practice referral systems for specialty and primary care practices. She has worked with private primary care practices and graduate medical education primary care practices, including Federally Qualified Health Centers. She has also directed improvement collaboratives sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges, American Medical Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, state governments and more.

Most recently, Sixta worked on the transformation of primary care practices to include the development of system infrastructure, change packages and tool kits that support population management.

Sixta holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in nursing from the University of Nebraska in Omaha, Nebraska, as well as an MBA from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a doctorate in nursing from UTH Health Science Center, School of Nursing, in Houston, Texas.

For more information about The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, please lot on to TheWrightCenter.org or call 570-230-0019.