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More than 1,000 executive leaders from the nation’s top hospitals and health systems convened at the 2023 AHA Annual Membership Meeting, April 23-25 in Washington, D.C.

AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack opened AHA’s Annual Membership Meeting by talking about three key messages that Congress needs to hear.  
 
“We need to stabilize our financial situation; we need to strengthen our workforce; and we need to secure our ability to continue to serve our communities,” Pollack said. 

Pollack painted a stark landscape, reminding attendees that hospitals and health systems continue to face unprecedented challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public health emergency may be over, Pollack said, but now the field is grappling with crippling financial troubles, unrelenting cyberthreats and dire workforce shortages. 
  
“While so many have moved on from dealing with COVID-19, we have not, because we are now dealing with its aftermath and aftershocks,” Pollack said. 
  
In the face of a shifting public narrative on the importance and role of hospitals, Pollack urged attendees to reinsert themselves in the conversation and “sound the alarm,” both with the public and with lawmakers. 
  
“One of the biggest challenges we face in strengthening our field is the growing drumbeat of inaccurate, misleading, unfair and self-serving criticism against hospitals and health systems,” Pollack told attendees. “We must tell the hospital story about all of the positive things we do every day, much more assertively and consistently than ever before.” 

For more on the 2023 AHA Annual Meeting, read AHA's coverage.