Richard A. Wright, MD, MPH
Consultant, Joint Commission International
Richard A. Wright is a board certified internal medicine and infectious disease specialist, with expertise in performance improvement and evaluation, care process redesign, and disease management by clinical teams. He is a former hospital and ambulatory executive, and served as an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently he serves as Professor of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine, providing education sessions and overseeing research projects related to primary and preventive care.
Dr. Wright’s consulting services for hospitals include patient safety; medical staff credentialing and privileging; infection control; performance measurement and improvement; Lean and Six Sigma; leadership development; and international hospital and primary care standards and survey process.
Between 1988 and 2005, Dr. Wright was a top executive of Denver Health Authority, an integrated delivery system in Denver, Colorado. In this position, he served as the Executive Director of the largest network of Federally Qualified Health Centers in the country, serving 100,000 residents in Denver and providing more than 300,000 ambulatory visits. This network included 10 community health centers, 12 school-based clinics, and a variety of public health programs. He established a coordinated continuum of care by managing the integration of these ambulatory services with the 300-bed Acute Care Hospital and local Public Health Services.
He serves on several local and national committees and provides numerous educational sessions, and has authored many articles on a broad array of topics related to health care quality and management. In 2005 Dr. Wright received a national award for research and innovation in primary care. He has been a health care consultant for 10 years, and has been consulting for JCR/JCI for four years.
Dr. Wright received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota and his master’s in public health from Loma Linda, School of Public Health, California. He received his internal medicine training in programs affiliated with the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland and the University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Wright is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians and a member of the American College of Physician Executives and American Public Health Association. He is also a Joint Commission-certified Yellow Belt.