The Wright Center President/CEO Appointed to National Committee

Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak, president and CEO of The Wright Centers for Community Health and Graduate Medical Education, has been appointed to serve a three-year term on the Partnership for Quality Measurement’s (PQM) Endorsement & Maintenance Committee Advisory Group on Cost and Efficiency.

The federally funded, consensus-based PQM brings together leaders and experts from across the health care spectrum to evaluate and endorse performance measures. Its mission is to ensure that measures are evidence-based, patient-centered, fair, and effective in driving quality improvement nationwide. Dr. Thomas-Hemak will contribute her clinical and leadership expertise to the Endorsement & Maintenance Cost and Efficiency Committee’s 45-member advisory group in evaluating and refining measures that assess total health care spending, resource use, and efficiency, ensuring they drive higher quality, lower cost care, improve value, and promote better use of health services across the U.S. health system.

A quintuple board-certified primary care physician in internal medicine, pediatrics, addiction medicine, obesity medicine, and nutrition, Dr. Thomas-Hemak sees generations of patients at The Wright Center for Community Health Mid Valley in Jermyn, her hometown, alongside her executive leadership. She is recognized nationally for her work in advancing community-based primary health care models, access to care, and interprofessional health care workforce development.

An alumna of Scranton Preparatory School and the University of Scranton, she earned her medical degree as a Michael DeBakey Scholar from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston before completing Harvard’s Combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Program in Boston. She returned to Northeast Pennsylvania to practice medicine, driven by a profound commitment to the community that shaped her. She joined The Wright Center in 2001, rose to president in 2007, and assumed the role of CEO in 2012.

Guided by a people-over-profit philosophy, Dr. Thomas-Hemak has built The Wright Center into one of the nation’s largest Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Safety-Net Consortiums, shifting physician training from hospitals to community-based health centers and preparing nearly 450 learners each year, many of whom remain to serve locally. She has expanded a network of 13 community health centers and a mobile medical and dental unit called Driving Better Health across Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Wyoming counties, delivering compassionate, high-quality, whole-person primary health services in rural and underserved populations. Under her leadership, The Wright Center has integrated primary care, behavioral health, dental, school-based, and advanced health information services to ensure accessible, coordinated care for all.

Under Dr. Thomas-Hemak’s leadership, The Wright Center has garnered numerous accolades, including designation by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as a Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike; a Pennsylvania Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence and Coordination Center for Medication-Assisted Treatment; a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Top 30 Site for National Primary Care Innovations; recognition as both a University of California, San Francisco, Center of Excellence in Primary Care and an American Association of Medical Colleges’ Premier Primary Care Residency; membership in the prestigious 2024 American Medical Association ChangeMedEd Consortium; and leading partner in the Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support (Healthy MOMS) program for pregnant women and new mothers with substance use disorder. Following the Patient-Centered Medical Home Model, The Wright Center for Community Health’s Clarks Summit, Mid Valley, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre locations achieved National Committee for Quality Assurance Patient-Centered Medical Home certification.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak also leads The Wright Center’s engagement in the Keystone Health Information Exchange and its catalytic role in a public television-based education campaign aimed at accelerating the wide-scale adoption of local, regional, and national health information interoperability.

A founding member of the consortium that established the Scranton-based Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Dr. Thomas-Hemak is the governor for the Eastern Region of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians (PA-ACP), the nation’s largest medical-specialty organization, and is vice president, as well as a founding board member, of the American Association of Teaching Health Centers, which represents community-based Teaching Health Centers that train primary care physicians. She serves on numerous local, regional, and national health care and medical education nonprofit governing boards, cross-sector committees, and workgroups, including HRSA’s Council on Graduate Medical Education, a federal advisory committee that assesses and recommends actions on physician workforce trends, training issues, and financing policies.

She is also the governing board chair and executive committee member of the Northeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center (NEPA AHEC), a member of the National Association of Community Health Center’s (NACHC) New Health Center CEO Affinity Group, Women Leaders, and an advisory board member of the Health Federation of Philadelphia’s Health Center Controlled Network. Additionally, she serves as a board member of the National AHEC Organization; the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine’s Undergraduate Medical Education-Graduate Medical Education (GME) Task Force: GME Growth in Action Group; the Pennsylvania Patient-Centered Medical Home Advisory Council; Keystone Accountable Care Organization; The Institute; and the Center for Health and Human Services Research and Action.

Dr. Thomas-Hemak has received several prestigious state and national awards for her leadership, mentorship, and advocacy initiatives, including: the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce 2025 Athena Award for career excellence, service, and women’s empowerment; the 2024 Wilford Payne Health Center Mentor Award from PACHC; the 2024 Hometown Scholars Advocacy Award from NACHC and A.T. Still University; the 2022 Elizabeth K. Cooke Advocacy MVP Award from NACHC for her efforts in engaging Congress and expanding grassroots advocacy; and the 2020 Ann Preston Women in Medicine Award from the PA-ACP for advancing women’s leadership in medicine. City & State Pennsylvania has also named her a Trailblazer in Health Care and one of Pennsylvania’s 100 most powerful and influential female leaders.

She and her husband, Mark, have three children, Mason, Maya, and Antoinette. Dr. Thomas-Hemak is the daughter of the late William Thomas and Johanna Cavalieri Thomas, who lives in Archbald.