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Feature / en Sat, 26 Apr 2025 18:59:06 -0500 Fri, 09 Aug 19 12:49:58 -0500 The Buzz: Takeaways from the 2019 AHA Leadership Summit /feature/2019-08-09-buzz-takeaways-2019-aha-leadership-summit <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-md-8"> Health care’s leading thinkers, innovators and doers recently convened at the AHA Leadership Summit in San Diego. They explored innovation processes and transformational strategies to better engage patients. Look inside for what had health care leaders buzzing at the conference. <ol> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=2">AHA Solvathon: Redesigning the health care experience</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=3">Digital Disruption: Where it is headed</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=3">Risk-Taking &amp; Credit Ratings: Why innovation pays</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=4">Startup Competition: Six entered the shark tank, one survived</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=5">Personalized Preventative Care: It's on its way</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=5">Transformation: Make it a way of life — your future depends on it</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=6">AHA Innovation Challenge: Winners improve community health</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=7">Flagship Moments: Make moments that matter</a></li> <li><a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf#page=7">Apollo 13: Remember, innovation doesn't have to be expensive</a></li> </ol> </div> <div class="col-md-4"> <a href="/system/files/media/file/2019/08/AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap.pdf"><img alt="The Buzz: Takeaways from the 2019 AHA Leadership Summit" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="3e5b1eb3-4962-4e54-9bd4-8252dfccbc6a" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Page-1-AHA-Market-Scan-Summit_Recap_Resized2.png" width="773" height="1000"></a> </div> </div> </div> Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:49:58 -0500 Feature Obituary: Health care leader Ed Eckenhoff /news/feature/2018-01-10-obituary-health-care-leader-ed-eckenhoff Ed Eckenhoff, founder and former president and CEO of the Washington, DC-based MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH), and a tireless advocate for the disabled, died yesterday after a battle with cancer. He was 74. Eckenhoff founded NRH in 1986 and served as its president and CEO until his retirement in 2009. He oversaw its growth from a single hospital to a medical rehabilitation network providing both inpatient and outpatient care, with unique offerings such as day treatment programs addressing conditions such as spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injury.&nbsp; The network now operates in 40 locations, providing nearly 400,000 ambulatory visits annually in addition to the hospital's more than 2,200 inpatient admissions. His tenure at NRH saw the development of a major research endeavor, the Christoph Ruesch Neuroscience Research Center. He helped forge an academic relationship with Georgetown University Hospital and a clinical relationship with the National Institutes of Health. He extended NRH’s research arm to develop a relationship with the military in seeking better ways to rehabilitate soldiers with major disabilities such as traumatic brain and spinal-code injuries as well as amputations. “He came to Washington to build a hospital and network that focused on ability, not disability,” said John Rockwood, who succeeded Eckenhoff as president of MedStar NRH. “He was a nationally recognized figure in the field of medical rehabilitation, and in many ways led the medical profession in advocating for persons with disabilities.” Eckenhoff said his life was inspired by obstacle and challenge. Tall, strong and one of four brothers, he was a fullback on the Swarthmore (Pa.) High School football team, played tennis and captained the track team. As a freshman at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., he was more focused on sports than academics, as he told the AHA’s Center for Hospital and Healthcare Administration History in a 2015 oral history. In 1963, at age 20, while he was riding in the passenger seat of his roommate’s sports car, his life changed when the car crashed, throwing him from the vehicle. He landed on his back and was paralyzed from the waist down. His roommate died. “It was a hard lesson,” he said in the AHA interview. “It turned me around, but I needed to be turned around. It was extremely beneficial in making me use what God had given me and to move forward and become successful.” After graduating from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis with a master’s degree in health care administration, he worked from 1974 to 1982 at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where he became vice president of administration. Eckenhoff served on the AHA Board of Trustees from 1991 to 1993, and chaired the association’s constituency section for long-term care and rehabilitation hospitals. He received the AHA’s 2007 Award of Honor, which recognizes people who have made outstanding contributions to public health and well-being through health service or public policy leadership.&nbsp; “We’ve lost one of the health care giants with Ed’s passing,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “As a patient, Ed recognized the need for specialized rehabilitative care and he answered that call through the NRH.&nbsp;As a health care executive, he helped patients with a wide range of conditions resulting in varying degrees of physical disability return to normal activities of daily living. He was a mentor and role model to so many – including myself – in his integrity, passion and commitment to providing high-quality patient care.” The American Medical Association awarded Eckenhoff the Citation of a Layman for Distinguished Service, the highest honor it bestows on a non-physician. He received the 1995 Meritorious Award from the American Occupational Therapy Foundation. In 1989, he was named "Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian magazine. In 2007, following the disclosure of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, President Bush appointed Eckenhoff to the Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, chaired by former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and former Sen. Bob Dole. The commission was charged with evaluating rehabilitation programs and services and making recommendation to improve care for injured soldiers and their families. “I’ve been able to help thousands of people just like me,” Eckenhoff told the online Our American Dream Stories in 2016. “It’s amazing how accepting and supportive people can be of those who have suffered adversity in this country. I never thought I’d end up where I am today, but with hard work in America, the possibilities are endless.”&nbsp; Wed, 10 Jan 2018 14:23:58 -0600 Feature New York Presbyterian hospital program helps begin healing process for abused children /news/feature/2018-01-05-new-york-presbyterian-hospital-program-helps-begin-healing-process-abused No child is too young to avoid being scarred by domestic violence or abuse, says Cynthia Arreola, who manages New York Presbyterian Hospital’s program for treating the youngest victims of abuse. “We know even when very young children are exposed to traumatic events, the effects can be harmful and long-lasting,” Arreola says. New York Presbyterian’s Family PEACE – Preventing Early Adverse Childhood Experiences – Trauma Treatment Center helps begin the healing process for abused children up to five years of age and moves them and their moms toward being more resilient, Arreola says.&nbsp; The program also trains hospital staff on how to effectively screen patients for signs of serious trouble at home. “We are talking about physical, sexual and emotional abuse,” says Wanda Vargas, the program’s lead psychologist. “It is often a partner who is abusive toward the mother and the child witnesses it … or the partner is abusing the child.” The program provides clinical services to children and their caregivers who live in the Washington Heights neighborhoods of northern Manhattan – an area hard hit by cases of domestic violence and abuse. Therapists work to build a trusting and secure relationship between parent and child. Most clients receive weekly, yearlong counseling designed to “help the parent understand the child … and, as the child becomes more verbal, we help them understand what has happened to the parent,” Vargas says. “And we develop a narrative about the trauma that has occurred.” Nearly 200 families last year received counseling through the program, which is supported by a $400,000 five-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Key partners include the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership (NMPR), a maternal child health organization that provides critical health and social services to communities throughout Manhattan. Families are referred to the Family PEACE center through social service organizations, like NMPR, law enforcement agencies and the hospital’s clinics.&nbsp; The trauma can manifest itself in children’s anger, aggression, sadness, despair, depression and regression – an inability to do things they could do before they experienced the abuse or violence. Without the early intervention provided at the Family PEACE center, these at-risk children wouldn’t make it in kindergarten, Vargas says. They would be expelled or placed in an outpatient behavioral treatment program. “That is why we do this,” she says. “These are children who are scared. They are worried about their mom and their own safety. They don’t have much resources left to sit in a classroom and act like other five-year-olds.” The program is making an impact on the population served, says manager Arreola. For 2016 participants, more than 50% of children had fewer behavioral problems; 75% of adults felt less depressed, and nearly 70% of them said they were less stressed because of the counseling they received at the center. “We have the power to make change for the family and interrupt the intergenerational transmission of domestic violence,” Arreola says. “These young boys are not going to grow up to be batterers.” &nbsp; Fri, 05 Jan 2018 12:52:56 -0600 Feature