Chairperson's File
Blog posts from 2025 AHA Board Chair Tina Freese Decker, president and CEO of Corewell Health, and past chairs.
For the 20% of Americans who rely on rural hospitals for their care, the blue and white 鈥淗鈥 is among the most reassuring signs they鈥檒l ever see. It signals that expert care, help and healing is available and nearby. Even if that hospital is located dozens of miles away from the patient or family it鈥
Last week, we Americans exercised our hallowed right to vote in record numbers. We did so at a time of unusual stress, facing steep challenges and deep divisions within our country. Yet once more, we honored our democratic system and our heritage by using the ballot to speak our minds.
Some health care needs are predictable but some are not. We can plan around giving birth, having a heart bypass, or scheduling a colonoscopy. But there are also surprises, such as injuries from accidents, or a cancer that appears with no family history 鈥 or COVID-19.
COVID-19 is a pandemic with no precedent, and certainly no equal. In many ways, we鈥檝e been learning as we go. For health care professionals, this has elevated the importance of peer-to-peer sharing as never before.
We know that prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, demand for health care workers and health care job openings were at record highs. We also know that the pandemic created pressure to quickly ramp up staffing levels and optimize surge capacity, even as the cancellation of non-emergent surgeries caused鈥
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a critical need for care that is customized, patient-centered, cost-effective and, most of all, successful. Team-based care checks all of these boxes and more.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to the issue of health care disparities. And it鈥檚 clear we鈥檝e got a lot of work ahead of us to close the gaps.
Today, we continue to grapple not only with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a dangerously polarized election, ongoing civil unrest in the face of untenable systemic racism 鈥 and now, 94 major wildfires that are devastating our West Coast neighbors, families and friends, as well as recent hurricanes鈥
Flu season soon will be upon us. And this year, it will take place in the middle of our ongoing battle against COVID-19.
There were 54 million U.S. residents 65 or older in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The agency projects that number will grow by nearly 30 million (to 84 million) by 2050.