/ en Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:12:46 -0500 Mon, 14 Apr 25 11:14:43 -0500 /news/chairpersons-file/2025-04-14-resources-navigating-transformation-and-change <p>This is an incredibly dynamic and transformative time for health care. One resource I have found incredibly helpful in speaking with many of you and engaging in strategic discussions are the <a href="/type/fact-sheets" target="_blank" title="Key Issues Fact Sheets">fact sheets</a> provided by the AHA. These concise, simple documents offer a wealth of information around key issues, what the AHA is doing and why, and how you can engage with these efforts.</p><p>There are likely to be substantial changes in health care policy during the new administration, and these fact sheets are great tools for advocating with your legislators and understanding the implications on the financial sustainability of our hospitals and health systems. Topics include enhanced premium tax credits, Medicaid, site-neutral payments, 340B drug pricing and more.</p><p>The AHA is focused on addressing these challenges head on with Congress, the administration, regulatory bodies and the courts to shape policy that advances our long-term viability and efforts to provide quality patient care. Our <a href="/advocacy-agenda" target="_blank" title="2025 Advocacy Agenda">2025 Advocacy Agenda</a> is focused on:</p><ul><li>Ensuring access to care.</li><li>Strengthening the health care workforce.</li><li>Advancing quality and health care system resiliency.</li><li>Leading innovation in care delivery.</li><li>Reducing health care system costs for patient care.</li></ul><p>We will be talking about these key advocacy priorities and pressing issues facing our field at the <a href="https://annualmeeting.aha.org/" target="_blank" title="AHA Annual Membership Meeting">AHA Annual Membership Meeting</a> May 4-6 in Washington, D.C. I hope to connect with many of you there as we engage in insightful conversations with policymakers, legislators and thought leaders.</p><p>Each of us has influence to use on behalf of our patients, caregivers and communities, and every vote matters. Together as a field, we have the power to make a difference. When we work together, we speak with a voice that is loud, clear and effective. Because we are here to care for the neighbors in our communities no matter what headwinds we face.</p><p><strong>Helping You Help Communities: Key AHA Resources</strong></p><ul><li><a href="/type/fact-sheets" target="_blank" title="AHA Fact Sheets">AHA Fact Sheets</a></li><li><a href="/advocacy-agenda" target="_blank" title="2025 Advocacy Agenda">2025 Advocacy Agenda</a></li><li><a href="/advocacy-issues" target="_blank" title="Advocacy Issues and Resources">Advocacy Issues and Resources</a> </li><li><a href="https://annualmeeting.aha.org/" target="_blank" title="AHA Annual Membership Meeting Webpage">2025 AHA Annual Membership Meeting</a></li></ul> Mon, 14 Apr 2025 11:14:43 -0500 Change Management /education-events/problems-possibilities-and-people-using-human-centered-design-create-and-scale-change-teams-apr-9 <div class="TTevent"> /* Forces the event Content Type to be 100% */ .container .row .col-md-8{ width: 100% } .event-registration-link a{ margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; display: block; text-align: center; } .event-registration-link a.btn-block { max-width: 300px; } .TTevent h3{ color:#002855; } .TTeventBonus{ color:#9d2235; font-weight:700; font-style: italic; } .TTeventdate{ font-weight: 700; font-size: 18px; color: #555555bb; line-height: 20px; } .TTeventSponsor img{ max-height:100px; } <p class="TTeventdate">April 9, 2025</p><p>Whether you are attempting to launch a quality improvement initiative, TeamSTEPPS framework, or a new business model, a human-centered design approach suggests that you properly frame the challenge, empathize with your audience, validate key assumptions, and be both inclusive and adaptive when scaling.</p><p>In this webinar, designers from Do Tank share techniques and a few case study examples that will help you engage key audiences (leaders, community members, colleagues, etc.), dive deep into the ‘problems to solve’, and test new ideas. A particular focus is paid to design canvases and methods, along with the art of generating the understanding and ownership that will inspire a collective will to change (rather than just a management directed one).</p><h4>Learning Objectives:</h4><ul><li>Understand some fundamental concepts and methodologies for human-centered design</li><li>Learn from specific case studies and examples about how other teams have used human-centered design</li><li>Discover key principles and best practices for engaging teams and shepherding change</li></ul><div class="row"><div class="col-md-5"><h4>Speakers:</h4><ul><li><strong>Adam Kohlrus, MS, CPHQ, CPPS</strong><br><em>Chief Health Strategist,</em> Do Tank</li><li><strong>Leslie Wainwright, PhD</strong><br><em>Partner,</em> Do Tank</li><li><strong>Matthew Kelly, MBA</strong><br><em>Partner,</em> Do Tank</li></ul><p class="text-align-center"><a class="btn btn-wide btn-primary" href="/system/files/media/file/2025/04/AHA_Team_Training_Webinar_Slides_Apr_2025.pdf" target="_blank">Download the slides</a></p> <div class="col-md-6"> <h4>SPONSORED BY:</h4> </div> <div class="col-md-6"> <p><a href="https://q-reviews.com/q-reviews/" target="_blank"><img alt="Quality Reviews logo" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" src="/sites/default/files/2021-01/Quality_Reviews_transparent_logo_200.png" /></a></p> </div> </div>--></div><div class="col-md-7"><div></div></div></div></div><div class="raw-html-embed"> <div data-embed-button="webform_embed" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:webform.token" data-entity-type="webform" data-entity-uuid="0b43a680-6f37-4d3f-9bf9-4cd6c7c7ddc5" data-langcode="en" data-entity-embed-display-settings="[]" class="embedded-entity"> <div id="edit-processed-text" class="js-form-item form-item js-form-type-processed-text form-item- js-form-item- form-no-label"> <div class="TTwebinarHide"> .webform-submission-form { max-width: 700px; } .TTwebinarHide{ display:none } .event-content.panel .TTwebinarHide { display:block; background-color: #fff; padding: 15px 15px 15px 15px; border: solid 2px #307FE2; text-align: center; } <p><a href="/center/team-training">Team Training</a> offers a variety of webinars - view our <a href="/center/team-training/webinars">current offering(s)</a> or browse the <a href="/center/team-training/webinars/library">library</a>.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:37:28 -0600 Change Management /news/headline/2025-02-26-aha-podcast-data-and-curiosity-strategies-strengthen-patient-safety <p>In this conversation, Mindy Estes, M.D., former CEO of Saint Luke's Health System and former AHA board chair, and Tori Bayless, CEO of Luminis Health and AHA board member, discuss how hospital leaders and boards can drive meaningful change, the impact of data-driven decision making and the importance of mentoring future health care leaders. <a href="/advancing-health-podcast/2025-02-26-data-and-curiosity-strategies-strengthen-patient-safety?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=aha-today" title="pod link"><strong>LISTEN NOW</strong></a><strong> </strong> </p><div></div> Wed, 26 Feb 2025 13:56:52 -0600 Change Management /aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2024-03-26-4-ways-drive-transformational-change-sustainability <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-8"><p><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/4-Ways-to-Drive-Transformational-Change-in-Sustainability.png" data-entity-uuid="131e0f9e-7c2b-4c38-bf5a-aa070d5b4e50" data-entity-type="file" alt="4 Ways to Drive Transformational Change in Sustainability. A plant growing in a green field is surrounded by a bubble label with carbon dioxide CO2 down." width="100%" height="800"></p><p>Like a growing number of health care organizations, New Jersey’s Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH) system has been on a journey for some time now to reduce its environmental impact and boost sustainability practices.</p><p><strong>Recent achievements include:</strong></p><ul><li>Investing more than <span><strong>$116 million</strong></span> in energy-efficient upgrades.</li><li>Purchasing <span><strong>99%</strong></span> of furnishings free of harmful chemicals.</li><li>Ensuring that all the electronics it purchased in 2022 were <span><strong>EPEAT</strong></span> [Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool]-certified, meaning that they meet environmental compliance criteria that address issues like materials selection, supply chain greenhouse gas-emissions reduction and energy conservation.</li><li>Saving more than <span><strong>$1.7 million</strong></span> by reprocessing medical devices, thereby diverting 40,000 pounds of medical device waste from landfills.</li></ul><p>Decarbonization efforts like these helped four HMH hospitals to be the first in the country to achieve <a href="https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/news-and-multimedia/newsletters/newsletters/joint-commission-online/march-13-2024/four-hackensack-meridian-health-hospitals-first-in-nation-to-achieve/" target="_blank" title="The Joint Commission: Four Hackensack Meridian Health Hospitals first in nation to achieve The Joint Commission’s Sustainable Healthcare Certification">The Joint Commission’s Sustainable Healthcare Certification</a> earlier this month.</p><h2><span>Confronting a Global Imperative</span></h2><p>Sustainability programs like that of HMH were once seen as an add-on to hospital operations and health care delivery. Today they are an operational priority as health care organizations confront climate change and work to reduce its impact on patients, employees and communities.</p><p>The recently released AHA-American Society for Health Care Engineering’s <a href="/system/files/media/file/2024/02/Sustainability-Executive-Toolkit.pdf" target="_blank" title="AHA: The Health Care Leader's Guide to Sustainability and Decarbonization">Health Care Leader’s Guide to Sustainability and Decarbonization</a> spells out the challenge facing the field.</p><p>The U.S. health care sector is responsible for 25% of global health care emissions and 80% of emissions in this sector come from goods and services in the supply chain, the report states, adding that hospitals should view sustainability as a means to protect human health.</p><h2><span>4 Ways CEOs Can Drive Transformational Change</span></h2><h3><span>1</span> <span>|</span> Drive leadership from the top.</h3><p>The complexities of health systems require top-down leadership and creative problem-solving from the bottom up to increase value.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>Make sustainability transformation an organizational goal. Acknowledge that sustainable hospitals offer unique benefits to their surrounding communities. Engage your board of directors and document the value of sustainability practices. Be clear that this is an executive priority and long-term commitment.</p><h3><span>2</span> <span>|</span> Identify internal leaders and allocate the resources needed for success.</h3><p>Engage and empower all employees to improve sustainability. Work internally with departmental leaders to build new relationships focused on reducing waste and increasing value.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>Frame sustainability within a growth context; embrace current challenges and seek innovative solutions. Engage your suppliers in the conversation. This work requires partnerships; no individual can get all of this work done, Kyle Tafuri, HMH’s vice president of sustainability, said in a recent interview. Not all suppliers will be willing to dive in, but they will discuss the issue. The goal is to start the conversation and work together.</p><h3><span>3</span> <span>|</span> Report your progress consistently.</h3><p>Communicate initiatives and progress regularly to your community and the sector.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>Show the value you’re creating through your actions. Recognize the functional roles for leadership and innovation. Collaborate with other CEOs to share successes and overcome obstacles.</p><h3><span>4</span> <span>|</span> Take advantage of federal funding to support your efforts.</h3><p>The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated $369 billion to support clean energy efficiency and clean energy projects.</p><h4>Takeaway</h4><p>The funds provide a combination of financial incentives for investments that ultimately may reduce pollution, expand clean energy production and address health inequities, with bonus credits for investments located in low-income communities and other census tracts, notes a recent <a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2024/how-funding-opportunities-inflation-reduction-act-can-help-move-health-systems-toward" target="_blank" title="The Commonwealth Fund: How Funding Opportunities in the Inflation Reduction Act Can Help Move Health Systems Toward Sustainability">report from The Commonwealth Fund and Deloitte</a>.</p><hr><h2><span>Learn More</span></h2><p>The AHA’s <a href="/sustainability" target="_blank" title="AHA: Sustainability Roadmap for Health Care">Sustainability Roadmap for Health Care website</a> provides a wealth of resources to support your organization’s journey. It addresses operations, procurement, purchasing, maintenance and new models of care, including how to kick-start your hospital’s sustainability efforts, a Sustainability Accelerator Tool, how to engage teams and build a sustainability culture through the HealQuest program and more.</p><p>A recent AHA Market Scan Trailblazers report, <a href="/aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2024-01-19-supply-chain-strategies" target="_blank" title="AHA Center for Health Innovation: Health Care Supply Cahin Strategies: Streamlining Supply Chain Practices as Health Systems Expand">“Streamlining Supply Chain Practices as Health Systems Expand,”</a> examines how some health systems are standardizing operations, reducing redundancy and increasing operational efficiency.</p></div><div class="col-md-4"><p><a href="/center" title="Visit the AHA Center for Health Innovation landing page."><img src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/logo-aha-innovation-center-color-sm.jpg" data-entity-uuid="7ade6b12-de98-4d0b-965f-a7c99d9463c5" alt="AHA Center for Health Innovation logo" width="721" height="130" data-entity- type="file" class="align-center"></a></p><p><a href="/center/form/innovation-subscription"><img src="/sites/default/files/2019-04/Market_Scan_Call_Out_360x300.png" data-entity-uuid data-entity-type alt width="360" height="300"></a></p></div></div></div>.field_featured_image { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } .featured-image{ position: absolute; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0 0 0 0); height: 1px; width: 1px; margin: -1px; padding: 0; border: 0; } Tue, 26 Mar 2024 06:15:00 -0500 Change Management /news/healthcareinnovation-thursday-blog/2022-02-17-embracing-flexibility-and-adaptability-face <p><img alt="#healthcareinnovation Thursday" src="/sites/default/files/2019-11/innovation-blog-banner-900.jpg" /></p> <p>Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida, <a href="/center/living-learning-network/pandemic-year-reflection" target="_blank">reflects</a> on lessons learned and best practices moving forward</p> <p>Flexibility and adaptability are terms that come to mind for me when I think about the ideal candidate in a job interview — someone who can jump into any situation, make sense of it and deliver a quality outcome.</p> <p>For many in the health care field, we’ve been doing things the same way for so long that we were a bit stuck in the past. We had a vision in our back pocket for more flexible and adaptable health care, but it was something that seemed to belong to a distant future. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to embrace rapid change and declare that the time is now to achieve those future goals. We were at the mercy of a devastating disease and had to act fast to save lives.</p> <blockquote> <h4>We know that our field will continue to be challenged by COVID-19, but this pandemic has taught us a valuable lesson: The future is not going to wait for us, and instead we have to be ready to embrace it.</h4> </blockquote> <p>At Baptist Health, we fully embraced telehealth and virtual care, launched expanded home health care and reinvested in our team members. We also have embraced the power of using predictive analytics daily to plan our next move and have changed the way we handle crises as we tackle a disease that is ongoing and ever-changing.</p> <h2>Connecting with Patients via Virtual Care</h2> <p>We have been using telehealth at Baptist Health since 2015 to enable our acute care providers —particularly those caring for stroke and pediatric patients — to bring their expertise into community-based emergency departments in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia. The pandemic helped convert the use of telehealth from “nice to have” to “need to have” to maintain physical and mental health for many patients.</p> <p>In March and April 2020, Baptist Health and our medical groups quickly coordinated telehealth visits at nearly 100 physician practices to safely continue caring for patients via virtual doctor visits. We continue to offer virtual visits at most physician offices, including Baptist Behavioral Health, where providers are still seeing a high percentage of patients via telehealth visits — currently above 80%. We also introduced HealthPlace On Demand powered by Telescope Health last year. The HealthPlace On Demand app connects patients 24/7 via video chat to trusted, board-certified emergency and family physicians.</p> <h2>Expanding Home Health Care</h2> <p>During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we needed a new model of enhanced home support to prevent unnecessary emergency room visits and hospitalizations at our five hospitals. The solution was to replicate a certain level of care that COVID-19 patients would receive in the hospital but safely administer it in the home setting.</p> <p>In a matter of a few weeks, Mary Leen, vice president of clinical operations, spearheaded the development of an enhanced home support model featuring in-home assessments by home health nurses and virtual visits by Baptist Health primary care physicians. Taking care of COVID-19 patients who needed oxygen therapy in their homes was something we had never done before, so we stood up a clinical transformation workgroup made up of team members from across the health system and developed clinical guidelines for treating these patients in the home setting.</p> <p>The results speak for themselves. Only 10% of the more than 1,800 COVID-19-positive patients treated through Baptist Health’s enhanced home support model since March 2020 have been admitted to a hospital.</p> <h2>Reinvesting in Team Members</h2> <p>Like health systems across the country, we have relied on the support of travel nurses throughout the course of the pandemic to supplement our staffing needs. But as the pandemic continues, we want to focus more on supporting our own nurses and team members. We have invested millions of dollars into increasing wages as just one way of emphasizing the value we place on the health care heroes within Baptist Health.</p> <h2>Continuing to Foster Change</h2> <p>With all that has happened in the last two years, embracing flexibility and adaptability will remain key skills for us all.</p> <p>We are leveraging predictive analytics to look at local, regional, national and international health care trends on a daily basis and analyze how COVID-19 numbers are rising and falling globally. Doing so helps us prepare for the trends to come. We did leverage predictive analytics prior to COVID-19, but mainly to look at regional health care trends in our market.</p> <p>Due to COVID-19, we also are rethinking how we respond to crises. In the first and second surges, we responded with an incident command system designed for crises that have a start and end, similar to what we set up in the past with hurricanes and Ebola. But after witnessing the chronic, ever-changing nature of COVID-19, we have adapted our approach, shifting our focus to managing the surges. This allows us to be better prepared to handle disruptions as they come.</p> <p>We know that our field will continue to be challenged by COVID-19, but this pandemic has taught us a valuable lesson: The future is not going to wait for us, and instead we have to be ready to embrace it.</p> <p><em><strong>Matt Zuino</strong> is executive vice president and chief operating officer at Baptist Health, based in Jacksonville, Florida. Baptist Health was featured in the AHA Living Learning Network’s <a href="/center/living-learning-network/pandemic-year-reflection" target="_blank">The Pandemic: A Time of Challenges and Champions</a>. Dedicated to helping participants recover from the pandemic, the LLN rebuilds and reimagines the public health and health care sectors, using a variety of platforms, such as messages boards, podcasts and virtual learning sessions. <a href="https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=QJMRube-Xk6EsjzBj3s2pv_cDGYcU7lMs0gAGGTowOlURFhKS1E1NkpROUJBU09TNU9QWEJSSUEzMC4u" target="_blank">Learn more and apply to join the LLN.</a></em></p> Thu, 17 Feb 2022 08:53:39 -0600 Change Management /advancing-health-podcast/2021-08-11-sponsored-eight-strategies-help-hospital-systems-manage-crises <p>Many times this requires hospitals and systems to develop new strategies and innovative approaches to deliver care and to maintain “the business” to better manage crises and overcome challenges. Join us for a discussion on eight key strategies that hospitals and systems can start implementing now and hear how Baptist Health Floyd Hospital is applying these strategies when handling crises and managing change, including the value that pathologists can provide.</p> <hr /> <p></p> <div><a href="https://soundcloud.com/advancinghealth" target="_blank" title="Advancing Health">Advancing Health</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/advancinghealth/sponsored-eight-strategies-to-help-hospital-systems-manage-crises-and-overcome-challenges" target="_blank" title="[Sponsored] Eight Strategies to Help Hospital Systems Manage Crises and Overcome Challenges">[Sponsored] Eight Strategies to Help Hospital Systems Manage Crises and Overcome Challenges</a></div> <p> </p> Wed, 11 Aug 2021 11:49:49 -0500 Change Management