Hospitals Are Cornerstones of Communities. We Must Tell Our Stories to Protect Access to Care

One year ago, a nurse at Children’s Hospital Colorado went above and beyond in a way that a very young patient and her family will never forget. 

Kayla McCarthy specializes in working with young children awaiting or recovering from organ transplants. In May 2024, she was approved as a living organ donor and contributed a piece of her liver to a young toddler in her hospital, helping to save the child’s life. 

McCarthy’s remarkable gift symbolizes with a single gesture what hospitals and their phenomenal care teams mean to the people and communities they serve. It is more than just the doors that are always open to all, any time of day or night. It is even more than the dependable, quality, compassionate care delivered to patients every minute of every day in every corner of the nation. 

The bond between hospitals and their communities reaches deeper. Hospitals and health systems offer programs that provide healthy food, preventive wellness education and maternal support services to ensure healthy births. Hospitals and health systems provide critical behavioral and mental health services. Hospitals and health systems are major employers, supporting families and businesses while providing a financial foundation that helps communities to thrive. And hospitals and health systems partner with community organizations to address the unique needs of the patients and neighborhoods they serve. 

For example: 

• Shodair Children’s Hospital in Helena, Mont., has launched the Hope Campaign to reduce stigma and encourage conversations about youth mental health.
• Dartmouth Health in Lebanon, N.H., offers free educational classes, support and services to improve the minds, bodies and spirits of older adults and their families. Older adults can take a class or series of classes to improve their balance, get help using their iPhone, learn strategies for coping with symptoms of chronic disease and get tips for eating healthy.
• Tenet Health’s The Hospitals of Providence in El Paso, Texas, recently unveiled a new center dedicated to caring for mothers experiencing a high-risk pregnancy. 

Every hospital and health system has many stories of how they are healing patients and advancing health for communities. Hundreds of these examples can be found on AHA’s Telling the Hospital Story webpages. 

These stories are powerful. They inform and inspire. It’s important that we share these stories with our communities and with our legislators, especially as Congress continues to consider funding cuts and policy changes that would jeopardize access to care for millions of Americans across the nation. 

Next week, Congress returns to Washington, D.C., and congressional committees will begin marking up portions of the budget reconciliation bill to enact key pieces of President Trump’s agenda. On May 7, we expect the House Energy and Commerce Committee to begin marking up its portion of the bill and the potential for significant cuts to the Medicaid program remain on the table.  

That week, we’ll have more than 1,000 hospital and health system leaders in Washington for AHA’s Annual Membership Meeting May 4-6. You can still register to attend if you have not done so yet. 

Whether you are at the Annual Meeting or not, you can tell your story to your legislators and explain how certain policies would jeopardize access to the 24/7 care and services that hospitals and health systems provide. 

We need to talk about protecting access to care by rejecting cuts to Medicaid, additional so-called site-neutral payment policies and harmful changes to the 340B program. At the same time, we need to extend the enhanced premium tax credits that help millions of Americans access affordable private insurance; strengthen and support the health care workforce; and provide relief from burdensome regulations and policies that inhibit care.

Please see our recent Action Alert for more details and resources to support your advocacy efforts. 

At the end of the day, the policies we are fighting for will protect access to care and services for patients, as well as help caregivers like Kayla McCarthy continue to do what they do best: heal, comfort and make lives better.