Chairperson's File
Blog posts from 2025 AHA Board Chair Tina Freese Decker, president and CEO of Corewell Health, and past chairs.
For people with diabetes, getting the proper treatment for foot wounds can prevent lingering problems and even amputation. The patient community in the rural area served by Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, Ogdensburg, N.Y., has a high incidence of diabetes and obesity, which can cause a high rate of…
Enriching. That's how AnMed Health views the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity of its community in relation to its workforce and care delivery. In 2001, the executive team at the 578-bed acute care system in Anderson, South Carolina, formalized a commitment to diversity. The health…
Improving quality of care can go hand in hand with eliminating disparities in care. University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson participated in Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This initiative aimed to improve quality of cardiac…
How do you measure success in creating a culture of health? Mountain View Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Madras, Ore., can count the 1,660 pounds that participants collectively lost in Movin? Mountains Health Challenge 2010. MVH serves a diverse, rural and somewhat economically…
A medical staff that is committed to social justice and a vision statement that includes reducing health care disparities. Alameda County Medical Center had these pieces in place to address disparities. Participating in the Disparities Leadership Program , at Massachusetts General Hospital, was the…
Changing demographics continue to fuel the growth of cultural diversity in Northeast Ohio. In turn, the population served by University Hospitals, Cleveland, has become more ethnically diverse. To better serve current patients and welcome new patients, UH's board charged hospital leadership…
The patient population of Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Mass., seemed to lack diversity. But by actively collecting racial, ethnic and religious data, the 134-bed hospital discovered pockets of socioeconomic and minority groups who could benefit from specialized services. Heywood formed a…
To expertly execute a dribble handoff in basketball, communication between teammates is key. How to effectively execute end-of-shift patient handoffs? Again, communication is key. The traditional nursing end-of-shift handoff process at University of Missouri Health Care, Columbia, Mo., involved…
The medical standard for timely angioplasty was 90 minutes door to balloon. The average for Lehigh Valley Health Network was 150 minutes with variation of monthly averages. Meanwhile the average for beginning thrombolytics therapy was much higher than the standard of 30 minutes. In stages over…
Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, wanted to transform its organization and in turn, transformed its culture into a continuous improvement culture. While the organization had embraced Lean methodology for years, it found that its project improvements were isolated and not always sustained. A…