Alumni Spotlight: Deborah Dirkse

Deborah Dirkse graduated from the UNC Charlotte MHA program in 2004, the first graduating MHA class. She currently works for Wake Forest Baptist Health as a Quality Improvement Consultant for a 17 county area. In addition to her position with Wake Forest, she recently joined UNC Charlotte as an adjunct faculty teaching the quality and outcomes class. With Mrs. Dirkse’s numerous professional experiences in quality, she is a great asset to the MHA program.

After she earned her MHA, Mrs. Dirkse became the project manager working with pediatric oncology patients for Wake Forest University Medical School. She later joined the Orthopedic department and the Bone and Joint Service Line as the Joint Replacement Coordinator. She stated that in this role she was able to interact with many departments at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to improve patients’ experience. Later Mrs. Dirkse transferred to Northwest Area Health Education Center in 2011 where she helped independent practices convert from paper charts to electronic medical records and meet Meaningful Use. In 2015 she completed her Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality and Certified Content Expert in Patient Centered Medical Homes certificate. Mrs. Dirkse stated, “Working with providers at the practice level is very rewarding. Improving a process or helping them achieve a goal affects many patients at a time. Healthcare is such a rapidly changing, dynamic field that I feel that MHA students can chart their own course. There have never been better opportunities.”