Capping decades driving quality improvement in health care, WHA Medical Director Sharon Eloranta, MD plans retirement
Sharon Eloranta, who devoted a career to improving the quality of care millions of Washingtonians rely on, has announced her plans to retire in June.
Dr. Eloranta has served WHA as our medical director for performance measurement and practice transformation since 2021. In that time, she has played a pivotal role in WHA’s growth, playing a direct role in matters ranging from our successful Low-Back Pain Implementation Collaborative to our expanded role as a regional leader of The Leapfrog Group’s patient safety efforts.
Among her important contributions to WHA was her unwavering voice on the importance of equity in health care, stressing that care cannot truly be of high quality if it is not first equitable. This influence included statewide quality initiatives both internally and through numerous committees such as the Bree Collaborative, the Washington Patient Safety Coalition and as co-chair of the State’s Performance Measurement Coordinating Committee.
Dr. Eloranta wishes to thank and celebrate her co-workers and the many coalition members for their efforts and engagement in improving the value of healthcare in Washington.
Dr. Eloranta came to WHA from Vera Whole Health, where she worked to create and support standards for operational excellence and was a champion for health equity. She previously was the Division Director for inpatient and service line quality at CHI Franciscan Health (now Virginia Mason Franciscan Health).
For two decades, Dr. Eloranta worked for (then) Qualis Health, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for the states of Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. While working for Qualis Health she completed a fellowship with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. Eloranta plans to leave WHA at the end of June to spend well-deserved time with her family. Her work as medical director will be distributed internally.