Building Trust and Improving Lives through Community Partnerships

I have the distinct privilege of serving as chair of the American Hospital Association’s Foster G. McGaw Prize Committee, which awards a prize each year to one hospital in the nation that best demonstrates the ability to get outside its walls and authentically engage with its community to promote health.

Last fall, our committee crisscrossed the nation to visit all four finalists. Despite the enormous challenges they face, hospitals are continuing to do amazing things. One developed an adaptive sports program so children with severe physical impairments can enjoy skiing, rock climbing, basketball and water skiing. Another developed a program for teens to perform clinical rotations in the hospital, meeting with staff, observing surgeries and developing the skills to be future health care leaders.

Another focused on the built environment in its community and improved wayfinding for outdoor trails. The hospital engaged local children in the design and planning of a beautiful downtown playground. And yet another trained medical students to serve as navigators to help “food insecure” patients get the external resources they need to live healthy and fulfilling lives.

And there are many other examples. James Hereford, president and CEO of the 2025 Foster G. McGaw Prize winner, Fairview Health Services in Minnesota, recently weighed in on the important responsibility that hospitals have in times of crisis, like what we have witnessed in Minneapolis.

“Health care systems like ours have a responsibility in moments like this. To be a source of stability when things feel unsettled. To earn trust through action. And to stay grounded in our mission and purpose when uncertainty is at its highest.”

Mark Boom, M.D., president and CEO of Houston Methodist and chair of the AHA Board of Trustees, is looking at the challenge of affordability as an opportunity to disrupt the status quo and lead his system into finding ways to “get better outcomes for society.”

Much closer to my home, Christine Schuster, president and CEO of Emerson Health in Concord, Mass., seeks to establish meaningful relationships with her community by “showing up consistently … in ways that aren’t transactional.”

And Eric Dickson, president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, has led his organization on a long-term effort to pursue an anchor mission.

The challenges in health care are not getting any easier. But despite those challenges, or perhaps because of them, enlightened institutions continue to devote their resources to helping make society better.

I can’t wait to view this year’s applications. Maybe one will be yours.

Doug Brown, partner, Manatt Health, and former president, UMM Community Hospitals, and chief administrative officer, UMass Memorial Health Care, Boston

The 2027 application period runs through May 5, 2026. For more information, please go to https://www.aha.org/fostermcgaw.