Rural Hospital Leadership Team Award - Background

The Rural Hospital Leadership Team Award from AHA Rural Health Services honors the leadership team who have guided their hospital and community through transformational change on the road to health care innovation. The team will have displayed outstanding leadership and responsiveness to the community’s health needs and demonstrated a collaborative community process that has led to measurable outcomes.

The winning leadership team, as represented by its president, CEO or administrator, will receive a stipend of $2,000 to defray a team representative’s expenses to attend the AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla. The AHA will work with the honoree and finalists to provide national recognition of their achievements through media releases and announcements and feature stories in our national media channels.

Eligibility: Applicants must be reflective of the hospital leadership team including a member from the hospital board, chief executive officer, president or administrator and at least one other member of hospital leadership from an AHA member hospital located in a rural area. We encourage applications from hospitals that demonstrate they are measuring and responding to their community’s health needs.

• Coordinated care
• Improved population health
• Clinical integration
• Alternate payment methods
• Advances in access to care/telehealth
• Extended or expanded access to coverage
• Quality measurement and outcomes
• Workforce innovation and solutions
• Pathways to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging

Central to all these efforts, and important to your application, is evidence of community engagement and measurable outcomes.

Applications are due Aug. 31, 2023, via email to ruralaward@aha.org. Award recipient and finalists will be notified in November.

Questions? Please email ruralaward@aha.org.