Crisis-Ready Leadership: How High-Performing Hospitals Prepare, Respond and Recover

AHA Leadership Scan: A Series of Virtual Panel Discussions

Crisis-Ready Leadership: How High-Performing Hospitals Prepare, Respond and Recover

Thursday, June 4, 2026 
1 – 2 p.m. Eastern; noon – 1 p.m. Central; 10 – 11 a.m. Pacific

Hospitals and health systems today face an expanding threat landscape — from increasingly severe natural disasters and rising workplace violence to sophisticated cyberattacks that can disrupt care delivery overnight. The question is no longer if a crisis will strike, but when. The health systems that weather the storm best are those that put plans in place to mitigate impact, drill regularly and build the capacity to respond when challenges inevitably arrive.  

In this Leadership Scan, hospital executives will share the proactive strategies, systems and cultures their organizations have built to address adversity and foster resiliency. Panelists will highlight what they have put in place—and what has worked—to protect patients, staff and operations when it matters most. Panelists will showcase how they are:

• Building resilient infrastructure and emergency operations that keep hospitals functional during natural disasters — from hurricanes and wildfires to floods and extreme heat — through hardened facilities, backup systems, and pre-positioned resources.
• Creating safer workplaces through prevention and de-escalation by embedding threat assessment teams, staff training programs and facility design improvements to mitigate the impact of violence.  
• Fortifying cyber defenses across the enterprise with governance frameworks, staff education, vendor management protocols and AI-enabled monitoring that detect and contain threats before they cascade.

Attendees will leave with actionable insights and approaches for assessing their own preparedness, practical examples of what high-performing health systems are doing differently and ideas they can bring back to their organizations immediately.

Attendees Will Learn:  

• Discover how leading health systems strengthen infrastructure and build operational playbooks that keep hospitals delivering care, even when disasters strike.
• Explore proven strategies for preventing and de-escalating workplace violence, including staff training models, environmental design and the leadership behaviors that sustain a culture of safety.
• Learn how health systems are building cyber resilience — from securing connected medical devices to standing up enterprise-wide threat response capabilities — while keeping clinical operations intact.
• Assess how leadership commitment, cross-functional coordination, and a culture of preparedness combine to create organizations that not only survive crises, but emerge stronger.

Session Panelists: 

Sandy Bledsoe  
Vice President, Healthcare Claims & Risk  
Howden  

AHA Moderator:

Elisa Arespacochaga 
Group Vice President, Clinical Affairs and Workforce 
American Hospital Association  

By attending the AHA Leadership virtual panel discussion "Crisis-Ready Leadership: How High-Performing Hospitals Prepare, Respond and Recover" offered by the AHA, participants may earn up to 1 ACHE Qualified Education Hour toward initial certification or recertification of the Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) designation.