Dr. David Eisenberg, the deputy chief medical officer for value-based care, health informatics, and operational sustainability at The Wright Center for Community Health, has been named a senior advisor by the Center for Healthcare Innovation.

The Center for Healthcare Innovation is a nonprofit research and educational institute based in Chicago, Illinois, that brings global leaders together to work on improving health care for everyone. Its members include health care providers, executives, caregivers, authors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and more.

For information about the Center for Healthcare Innovation, please visit www.chisite.org and www.chisite.org/dr-david-eisenberg-md.

The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education recently donated $10,000 to the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties in support of its annual campaign. 

“The United Way and the people we serve every day are grateful for the ongoing support of The Wright Center,” said Gary W. Drapek, president and CEO of the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties. “Our missions to lift up underserved communities in the region are more important than ever as the global pandemic continues to affect many facets of our lives. This donation will lessen the impact of COVID-19 on those who can least afford it.”

The Wright Center cares for more than 30,000 patients at its eight primary care practices in Lackawanna, Luzerne and Wayne counties. The Wright Center for Community Health works to improve the health and welfare of Northeast Pennsylvania by improving access to patient-centric health care services, while The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education builds a sustainable and competent workforce of physicians.

A team of cardiovascular disease fellows and internal medicine residents at the Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education recently presented their scholarly research, “Comparison of Radial vs. Femoral Arterial Access for Complex Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” at an international conference in Orlando, Florida.

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation’s Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Conference, an annual scientific symposium, is the world’s foremost educational forum that specializes in interventional cardiovascular medicine. It features major medical research breakthroughs and leading researchers and clinicians from around the world presenting and discussing the latest evidence-based research.

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Drs. Muhammad Pir and Najam Saqib, cardiovascular fellows, and Drs. Hamza Hanif and Muhammad Affan, internal medicine residents, co-authored the research presentation. It involved the review of 14 studies and 12,272 patients to assess existing literature on radial versus femoral arterial access for complex percutaneous coronary intervention. Radial access was associated with a significantly lower rate of major bleeding, but the work discovered that overall procedural success was superior when utilizing the femoral artery.

The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education features three fellowships: Cardiovascular disease, gastroenterology and geriatrics. Over three years, the cardiovascular disease fellowship trains fellows in community-based settings with globally and nationally recognized, board-certified cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons. Fellows also hone the knowledge and skills needed to provide state-of-the-art cardiac care, while advancing the specialty field through their own scholarly research and practice.

Overall, The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education has had 75 scholarly abstracts, written on a wide array of topics in medicine, accepted for presentation at professional conferences since the beginning of the 2021-22 academic year.

For more information about The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, go to thewrightcenter.org or call 570.343.2383.

Funding builds upon program in Hazleton, targets other underserved areas in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming counties

The Wright Center for Community Health recently was awarded $75,000 in state funding to encourage hesitant residents in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The new grant funding is part of the state’s $2.5 million COVID-19 Vaccine Outreach Program that supports grassroots efforts to reduce vaccine hesitancy across the commonwealth. The program, administered by the state Department of Community and Economic Development, builds upon the ongoing statewide public health awareness campaign, PA United Against COVID-19.

“The Department of Health remains committed to eliminating obstacles and challenges that prevent Pennsylvanians from getting vaccinated,” Physician General Dr. Denise Johnson said in a press release announcing the 65 grant recipients. “I am impressed by the tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians who are stepping up every day to get their first, second or third dose of vaccine to protect themselves, their loved ones and their neighbors against COVID-19.

With the grant funding, The Wright Center for Community Health will build upon its existing Driving Better Health program in the Hazleton area that delivers COVID-19 vaccines to members of the Hispanic community with the 34-foot mobile medical unit. The collaborative program involves the Hazleton Integration Project, Hazleton Area School District and community leaders reaching vulnerable, underserved populations in southern Luzerne County.

The Wright Center also will build vaccine confidence through outreach and community engagement that overcomes structural, behavioral and informational barriers, including education, rural residency that limits access to health care, people who speak limited English, individuals with low incomes and other under-resourced communities. The mobile medical unit enables clinical staff to establish community clinics and see patients where they live and work thanks to community collaborations that include schools, rural partners, community organizations and ethnic groups.

The grant will enable The Wright Center for Community Health’s Driving Better Health to conduct up to 36 outreach events in the coverage area over 12 months.

For more information about The Wright Center for Community Health, call 570.343.2383 or go to TheWrightCenter.org.

The Wright Center for Community Health has been selected as one of 15 health centers across the nation to participate in a grant-funded Community Vaccine Ambassador Project, aimed at increasing COVID-19 immunizations among groups that historically have been marginalized.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will fund the initiative, which involves health centers in 12 states. The project is being conducted in partnership with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council and the National Association of Community Health Centers. 

The Wright Center will receive $200,000 in grant funding to focus on administering vaccines to individuals with substance use disorders and individuals who experience homelessness. These populations have been identified as being at increased risk for COVID-19 infection because, among other reasons, they “experience barriers to accessing health care and might have low levels of trust in the medical system due to previous experiences of distress or stigma,” according to the project’s organizers. 

The Wright Center’s community health workers and certified recovery specialists will serve as project “ambassadors,” providing vaccination education and information over the year-long project to people in the organization’s five-county service area in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Since December 2020, when the new COVID-19 vaccines first became available, The Wright Center has administered more than 40,500 vaccine doses. The federal Health Resources and Services Administration earlier this year presented a 2021 Community Health Quality Recognition award to The Wright Center, recognizing the nonprofit organization’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts in response to the public health crisis. 

The Wright Center, which serves as one of about 50 Pennsylvania-designated Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence, has significant experience in treating and supporting individuals who are coping with substance use disorder. It has assisted individuals living in recovery and co-founded the region’s Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support (MOMS) program, which assists pregnant and new mothers who have a substance use disorder.

For more information about The Wright Center for Community Health, call 570.343.2383 or go to TheWrightCenter.org.  

The Wright Center for Community Health is accepting appointments for 16- and-17-year-olds to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech third-dose booster shot at community practices in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties after U.S. health authorities gave emergency authorization for the third dose on Dec. 9.

The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave emergency authorization of the vaccine for this new age group, provided they are six months past their last dose of their primary COVID-19 vaccination series. The newly approved booster offers the same dosage as the primary vaccine.

The Wright Center for Community Health is also administering booster doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for all adults. Anyone 18 and older who received their Pfizer or Moderna primary vaccine series at least six months ago or received a Johnson & Johnson dose at least two months ago is eligible. In addition, the pediatric dose of the Pfizer vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds was authorized by the CDC on Nov. 2.

Appointments for these series of vaccines also are being accepted at select Wright Center community clinics. Please go to TheWrightCenter.org or call 570.343.2383 to schedule an appointment for the primary vaccine series, booster series or pediatric vaccine.