Five Programs Earn 2026 AHA Dick Davidson NOVA Award For Commitment To Improving Community Health

WASHINGTON (May 11, 2026) — The American Hospital Association (AHA) today announced that five exemplary programs have earned the AHA Dick Davidson NOVA Award for their hospital-led collaborative efforts that improve community health.

The winning programs are the Juvenile Justice Collaborative, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Chicago; Pediatric Access to Telemental Health Services, Children’s of Alabama, Birmingham, Ala.; Housing Outreach Partnerships and Engagement (HOPE); Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Denver; Collaborating to Address Homelessness, Jackson-Madison County General Hospital, Jackson, Tenn.; Community HUB (Helping to Uplift and Bounce Back), Memorial Regional Hospital, Hollywood, Fla.

The AHA Dick Davidson NOVA Award recognizes hospitals for their collaborative efforts toward improving community health status, whether through health care, economic or social initiatives. The award is named for the late Dick Davidson, who led the AHA as president and CEO for 15 years, and reflects his passion for finding ways for hospitals to collaborate with local organizations and improve health for patients and communities. Honorees participate in joint efforts with other hospitals, or among hospitals and community leaders and organizations. This year’s recipients will be recognized at the AHA Healthier Together Conference May 12-14 in Dallas. 

“This year’s Dick Davidson NOVA Award winners are national models in improving community health through strong, integrated partnerships with other community organizations,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “These hospitals and health systems offer exemplary and extraordinary services and programs that are tailored to meet the specific needs of their varied communities.”

The 2026 winning programs and hospital partners are:

Juvenile Justice Collaborative
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Chicago
The Juvenile Justice Collaborative is an innovative care coordination program supporting justice-involved youth ages 12-18 who are arrested for non-violent felonies or serious misdemeanors by addressing unmet behavioral health, substance abuse and basic health and social needs. The program delivers strong, measurable community impact through longstanding cross-sector partnerships and services that address youth and family priorities, including transportation, housing, food access, and connections to mentoring, education and employment. It’s a highly collaborative program with a community leadership team that sets annual performance targets, reviews robust evaluation metrics and monitors and responds to community and youth feedback.

Pediatric Access to Telemental Health Services (PATHS)

Children’s of Alabama, Birmingham, Ala.

This impactful initiative expands access to pediatric behavioral health through strong rural reach, strengthened primary care integration and robust academic-community partnerships. By strengthening collaboration between hospitals, public health agencies, schools and community partners, this program shifts care delivery from a centralized specialty model to a distributed, community-based system. PATHS strengthens early childhood treatment options by training and certifying therapists in rural communities. It also provides mental health education for teachers, counselors and school nurses, equipping them with resources that enhance understanding of common mental health diagnoses and practical approaches for supporting students.

Housing Outreach, Partnerships and Engagement (HOPE)
Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Denver

This partnership improves outcomes and reduces length of stay for patients experiencing homelessness through an interdisciplinary team grounded in the belief that housing is health care. Denver Health’s HOPE program demonstrates effective, community‑centered design through collaboration with a range of homelessness resolution partners, supported by data integration and proactive screening, targeted outreach, and connections to housing partners and resources during hospital visits. By helping to bridge two systems, health care and housing, that have historically operated too far apart, HOPE challenges the idea that homelessness is a problem only to be solved outside the hospital’s walls.

Collaborating to Address Homelessness

Jackson-Madison County General Hospital, Jackson, Tenn.

This collaboration uses a comprehensive approach to reducing homelessness by improving youth, adult and family stability by increasing housing resources, support services and health care through community partnerships. West Tennessee Healthcare, through Jackson-Madison County General Hospital, leads a cross-sector of 30 agencies in a continuum of care to implement a community plan for organizing and delivering housing and services to meet the specific needs of people who are homeless as they move to stable housing and maximize self-sufficiency. Eight housing navigators located throughout the service area conduct prevention, street outreach, case management and aftercare. Jackson-Madison County General Hospital does not discharge homeless patients without housing or a home to go to. It works with collaborative partners to obtain housing for them.

Community HUB (Helping to Uplift and Bounce Back)

Memorial Regional Hospital, Hollywood, Fla.

The Community HUB replaces fragmented care for patients with high medical and social complexity and significant health-related social needs with a coordinated continuum that extends beyond hospital walls. The initiative achieves significant improvements in outcomes and cost savings through a mobile care model grounded in lived‑experience engagement and rigorous analytics. The HUB has experienced success in reducing preventable emergency department visits and hospital readmissions while increasing patient education and awareness of community care resources, empowering independence and self-advocacy. The program is designed as a scalable blueprint for communities nationwide to close the gap between health care and everyday health.

###

About the American Hospital Association (AHA)
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA advocates on behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinician partners — including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers — and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides insight and education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA website at www.aha.org.