ACHI promotes 3 to new roles

The Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI) announced the promotions of Sandra McGrew to executive director, Jennifer Wessel to director of health policy, and Joshua Cook to director of external relations.

As executive director, McGrew will lead organizational operations for the independent health policy center, including strategic planning, executive engagement, contracting and project management. She joined ACHI in 2019 as director of external relations and has served as interim executive director since May following the retirement of Danielle Taylor.

Wessel was a senior policy analyst at ACHI before becoming interim director of health policy last January. She focuses on health policy initiatives related to the advancement of community health and wellness and the collection of health data reported under the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative. Her work also supports healthcare workforce analyses to inform efforts to improve access to care statewide. Wessel will continue to serve as ACHI’s data privacy officer.

Cook was ACHI’s assistant director of external relations before becoming interim director of external relations in May. He oversees communications and engagement efforts, including media outreach, publications, videos, podcasts, social media content and external events.

“Sandra, Jennifer and Joshua have all been essential members of ACHI’s team, and I’m honored to announce their promotions to these key positions,” said ACHI President and CEO Craig Wilson. “With our leadership team in place, ACHI is well positioned to build upon our analytic capacity and data assets, not only to provide actionable and timely insights and inform decision makers, but also to support collaborative research efforts, quality improvement initiatives, and evaluations of system performance at this crucial juncture for health care in Arkansas.”

ACHI is a nonpartisan, independent health policy center.