NAHQ Honors Healthcare Quality Leaders

CHICAGO, Nov. 6, 2026 /CourierPR/ -- The National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) today announced its 2026 award recipients and newly inducted Fellows, recognizing professionals who work in quality and safety whose leadership, service, scholarship, and performance improvement efforts are advancing the profession and discipline and improving healthcare.

Patricia "Patty" Resnik, CPHQ, currently serving as the Chief Compliance Officer at HealPros, brings 30 years of experience in the healthcare quality profession. Her executive leadership spans quality, care management, virtual health, compliance, and enterprise risk management. In her current role, she leads organizational quality, compliance, and privacy programs, partnering with service line leaders to embed a culture of compliance throughout the organization. Her responsibilities include developing compliance and HIPAA policies and workflows, designing enterprise-wide education programs, establishing internal controls and audit processes, and overseeing third-party risk management and enterprise risk assessments. She also partners with information security leadership to advance compliance with HITRUST R2 certification standards.

Resnik's contributions to the profession include serving as president of the NAHQ Board of Directors in 2024 and 2025, along with published work and presentations addressing quality, regulatory strategy, care transitions, and performance improvement. Her published contributions include a chapter on population health and care transitions in HQ Solutions Resource for the Healthcare Quality Professional, Fifth Edition and an article in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.

Robin K. Betts, CPHQ, currently serving as Vice President of Safety, Quality & Regulatory Services at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, Northern California, is a healthcare quality and patient safety executive whose career spans quality, regulatory services, risk management, patient safety, and performance improvement. Her work in quality improvement at Kaiser Permanente, in partnership with NAHQ, has demonstrated the measurable return on investment of quality initiatives and helped advance the business case for quality as a driver of organizational performance and industry-wide improvement. She has contributed to the profession through board leadership, published thought leadership, and presentations focused on patient safety, health equity, data-driven improvement, and the role of quality in strengthening healthcare organizations. Her professional service includes leadership with the Patient Safety Movement Foundation and Lifelong Medical Care.

NAHQ also recognizes three members with its 2026 awards.

Claire Glover Distinguished Member Award The Claire Glover Distinguished Member Award recognizes a dynamic and passionate NAHQ member who demonstrates enthusiasm and leadership and contributes to healthcare quality through activities including consultation, publications, and presentations. The award honors Claire Glover, an advocate for NAHQ and healthcare quality who was instrumental in mentoring and encouraging others to become NAHQ leaders. The 2026 Recipient is Neha Chowrasia, CPHQ, Clinical Effectiveness Consultant IV, Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital. Chowrasia is recognized for her commitment to advancing healthcare quality through professional leadership, volunteer service, education, and scholarship. Her contributions include service with NAHQ, the American Society for Quality, and other healthcare organizations, as well as publications, presentations, peer review, and community work focused on healthcare quality, patient safety, and health equity. Her recent work includes leadership roles within American Society for Quality divisions, service on the NAHQ Awards Team, and numerous publications and presentations addressing healthcare quality, continuous improvement, disparities, and the intersection of technology and healthcare.

Luc R. Pelletier Healthcare Quality Award for Improving Organizational Performance The Luc R. Pelletier Healthcare Quality Award recognizes a NAHQ member who has developed and actively participated in a performance improvement project, program, or initiative that demonstrates improved organizational performance and directly affects the quality of healthcare for a defined patient population. The award is named for Luc R. Pelletier, who served as editor-in-chief of the Journal for Healthcare Quality from 1998 to 2007 and championed excellence through professional service, teaching, and writing. The 2026 Recipient is Heidi DelVecchio, Ambulatory Market Manager, Quality, University Hospitals. DelVecchio is recognized for leading a quality improvement initiative that introduced structured safety huddles across 18 ambulatory physician offices. The initiative strengthened proactive identification and communication of patient safety risks, including increasing near-miss reporting from zero before implementation to 11 events during the six-week pilot, while establishing a structured pathway for escalating system-level safety concerns.

Journal for Healthcare Quality Impact Article Award The Journal for Healthcare Quality Impact Article Award recognizes the lead author of an article that highlights research and ideas promoting excellence in healthcare and has significant impact on the healthcare quality profession. The 2026 Recipient is Jill McCormick. Jill McCormick serves as Manager of Continuous Improvement for the Front Range Region of Intermountain Health, where she oversees quality improvement efforts across four acute care hospitals and 90 clinics in Colorado. Her award-winning article highlighted a hospital-wide, interdisciplinary quality improvement effort that reduced monthly emergency department hold hours by more than 75%, offering a practical approach other healthcare organizations can adapt.

Together, the 2026 honorees reflect the many ways healthcare quality professionals strengthen healthcare, from executive leadership and professional service to scholarship, education, patient safety, and performance improvement.