AHA Stat Blog

Joanne Conroy, M.D., is CEO and president of Dartmouth Health, which is the only academic health system in New Hampshire and serves rural and urban residents in both New Hampshire and Vermont.

As we welcome a new year, this is a good time to examine the health care landscape ahead as we work to ensure Congress fully appreciates how hospitals and health systems need its support to continue delivering high-quality patient care to their constituents and communities.

On this episode, John Haupert, 2023 AHA board chair, talks with Joanne Conroy, M.D., CEO and president of Dartmouth Health and the incoming AHA chair. They reflect on challenges, opportunities and advancements in health care during the past year and discuss what’s ahead for next year.

According to a 2022 report from the Journal of the American Medical Association, even now, long after the height of the crisis, health care workers’ emotional exhaustion is 27% more prevalent than pre-pandemic. The lasting effects of the pandemic on mental health are real, and they are challenging.

Despite significant and ongoing challenges this year, hospitals and health systems can be proud of the job they do each and every day to care for our families, our friends and our neighbors.

Community health workers have become an essential component of RUSH University Medical Center’s efforts to minimize inequities in health and life expectancy. CHWs provide much-needed resources across the RUSH campus and several Chicago neighborhoods, while also being a driving force for partnerships and programming in a variety of care and community settings.

This year marked the AHA’s 125th year as an advocate in the health care field for hospitals and health systems and their patients, health care professionals and communities.

Even prior to the pandemic, the biggest questions facing health care providers were: Where is our field headed? And, how can we continue to innovate and transform to deliver the best possible patient care in a fast-changing future?

Earlier this year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., released the publication “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community”

In a new location for 2024, the 37th Annual AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference, will be held Feb. 11-14 in Orlando, Fla. The conference brings together senior executives, physician leaders, trustees and nurse executives from the nation's leading rural hospitals and health systems to share powerful insights and strategies to transform rural health care delivery and business practices.

To support and advance those efforts, the AHA recently launched a new Patient Safety Initiative that seeks to energize all the work already underway and reaffirm hospital and health system leadership and commitment to patient safety.

In a new location for 2024, the 37th Annual AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference, will be held Feb. 11-14 in Orlando, Fla. The conference brings together senior executives, physician leaders, trustees and nurse executives from the nation's leading rural hospitals and health systems to share powerful insights and strategies to transform rural health care delivery and business practices.

A recent Modern Healthcare article misleadingly suggests that hospitals and health systems provided less charity care between 2020 and 2023. In reality, hospitals’ overall charity care increased over the last three years.

The AHA recently released the 2024 Health Care Workforce Scan, which identifies and shares strategies and resources that support hospital and health system teams.

This week, as many of us gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, let’s give thanks for the incredible dedication, compassion and expertise of the people working at hospitals and health systems.

From all of us at the American Hospital Association, best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving.

This Thursday is National Rural Health Day, a time to celebrate “the power of rural.”

For nearly 250 years, our courageous and selfless veterans have stood up for the nation’s defense, protecting their countrymen and America’s founding ideals at great personal cost.