Chairperson's File
Blog posts from 2025 AHA Board Chair Tina Freese Decker, president and CEO of Corewell Health, and past chairs.
A vigorous approach to quality improvement at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Ill., is achieving excellent, sustainable patient outcomes and spreading innovation. The teaching hospital is the 2016 winner of the AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize. Memorial Medical Center uses Lean Six…
For more information, contact Yvonne Chan, program manager, at chanyk@sutterhealth.org.
Community health needs assessments—CHNAs—are becoming a driver of community collaborations and a springboard to launch community health improvement initiatives. As such, hospitals and health systems are going beyond the required elements to make the CHNA process a more robust and…
A “Germ Crusher” challenge at Children's Hospital Colorado brought together leadership, staff, patients and families to increase hand hygiene compliance—and have fun at the same time. The 486-bed children's hospital in Aurora, Colo., launched the project over a four-week period in…
Visit AHA.org for more information on the Foster G. McGaw Prize, the 2015 finalists and previous winners and finalists.
“Small changes can make a big difference.” So say health care professionals working to prevent adverse drug events at Labette Health in Parsons, Kan. The 99-bed rural hospital joined the AHA/HRET Hospital Engagement Network in 2012, working to reduce all ADEs by 40 percent by year-end…
A powerful tool for hospitals to address priority health needs of their patient population and the community at large is the community health needs assessment. A new AHA guide, “Engaging Patients and Communities in the Community Health Needs Assessment Process,” describes an eight-step…
June 5–11 is Community Health Improvement Week. The AHA's Association for Community Health Improvement (ACHI) organizes this national event to raise awareness about and recognize community health professionals, organizations and coalitions for their commitment to improving the health of the…
An intervention to prevent childhood obesity has blossomed into a communitywide effort led by a local hospital. Providence St. Patrick Hospital helped launch CATCH—Coordinated Approach to Child Health—in Missoula, Mont. Based on the CDC's Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model…
Using HOUDINI to eliminate CAUTI. It's all about decreasing the inappropriate use of indwelling catheters—an important step in eliminating catheter-associated urinary tract infections. Lovelace Westside Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M., adopted the HOUDINI protocol to help decrease CAUTIs…