Member Resource: Building and Maintaining Public Trust and Confidence
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Hospitals Leading the Way to a Healthier America
Hospitals have always been at the heart of community health empowering healthier, happier lives for all.
AHA Launches New Multimedia Advertising Campaign to Promote Hospitals
The campaign includes a commercial that will run on national, cable, and digital TV and digital advertising.
New Resources Spotlight Crucial Role of Rural Hospitals and Health Systems
The AHA released new resources to help rural hospitals and health systems share their stories and highlight the vital role they play in their communities.
Creative repurposing saves heart during double-lung transplant
Old technology — applied in new and novel ways — can still be a lifesaver.
All Stories
Building Healthy Communities
Intermountain Health St. James Hospital
Montana
Frankee Angel, a lifelong performer, found her world upended when she suffered a sudden medical emergency just before playing piano at St. Patrick’s Church.
Building Healthy Communities
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Little Rock, Ark.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is demonstrating the powerful impact of its Food Is Medicine program.
Building Healthy Communities
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman
Kaufman, Texas
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman is strengthening community wellness through its Healthy Education Lifestyles Program (HELP), an initiative designed to give patients both clinical support and practical health education.
Ensuring Access to Care
Arkansas Children’s Hospital
Little Rock, Ark.
Arkansas Children’s Hospital is utilizing telemedicine to expand access to care and support rural hospitals that lack pediatric cardiac MRI and CT expertise.
Ensuring Access to Care
Northern Cochise Community Hospital
Cochise County, Ariz.
In rural Cochise County, Ariz., many older adults struggle with limited incomes, chronic health conditions, and scarce access to essential resources. Geographic isolation and high poverty rates among seniors make basic needs — such as adult incontinence supplies — difficult to afford.
Ensuring Access to Care
Clifton-Fine Hospital
St. Lawrence County, N.Y.
Clifton-Fine Hospital in St. Lawrence County, N.Y., adjacent to the Canadian border, was long challenged by low patient numbers and an outdated, cramped emergency room so small and crowded that staff struggled to treat multiple patients with space or privacy.
Benefiting Communities
MultiCare Valley Hospital
Spokane, Wash.
Every December, health care workers at MultiCare Valley Hospital, based in Spokane, Wash., take on extra seasonal roles: holiday “elves." For nine years, the staff has organized a gift drive to support local children, donating presents and essential items to families who need them most.
Benefiting Communities
Manning Family Children’s Hospital
New Orleans, La.
Manning Family Children’s Hospital has become the first facility in Louisiana and the broader Gulf South region to earn verification as a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center.
Benefiting Communities
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Little Rock, Ark.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is demonstrating the powerful impact of its Food Is Medicine program.
Innovation, Research, and Quality Improvement
Lake Charles Memorial Health System
Lake Charles, La.
Lake Charles Memorial Hospital has launched Mission Move Well, a systemwide initiative built on the Arjo MOVE framework to support patient mobility, strengthen staff response and improve patient safety.
Innovation, Research, and Quality Improvement
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, Mass.
Kieran, a 57-year-old father of three, joined the American Heart Association’s 2024 Boston Heart Walk just over a year after receiving a heart transplant. His participation in the one-mile walk reflected his progress toward recovery and his desire to support heart disease advocacy and research.
Innovation, Research, and Quality Improvement
Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center
Las Vegas, Nev.
Las Vegas-based Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center recently completed Nevada’s first FDA‑approved minimally invasive repair for complex aortic aneurysms, a life-threatening condition involving the body’s main artery.
Prevention and Wellness
HCA Florida St. Lucie Hospital
Port St. Lucie, Fla.
It was Angela and Christopher’s wedding anniversary, but it looked like they wouldn’t be able to celebrate it. Angela, a nurse at HCA Florida St. Lucie Hospital, wasn’t working — instead, she was a patient recovering from surgery to address severe abdominal pain. But her co-workers and friends weren’t going to let the day pass by.
Prevention and Wellness
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman
Kaufman, Texas
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman is strengthening community wellness through its Healthy Education Lifestyles Program (HELP), an initiative designed to give patients both clinical support and practical health education.
Prevention and Wellness
Cottage Hospital
Woodsville, N.H.
Designed as a “caring and sensitive environment,” the Ray of Hope unit at Cottage Hospital addresses behavioral health needs associated with aging.
Workforce
East Alabama Health
Opelika, Ala.
Maintaining a trained workforce is one of the greatest challenges facing rural hospitals today. In Alabama, the shortage is particularly and increasingly severe, especially when it comes to nurses. East Alabama Health is addressing the problem in multiple ways.
Workforce
In this conversation, Thomas Ahr, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Hospital Sisters Health System, details how the health system is prioritizing prevention, supporting staff after incidents, and turning safety into a leadership responsibility.
Workforce
Decatur Memorial Hospital
Decatur, Ill.
Decatur Memorial Hospital (DMH) is celebrating a major milestone as its Nurse Anesthesia Program reaches 60 years of educating skilled professionals for Central Illinois and beyond.
Benefiting Communities
University of Kansas Health System
Kansas City, Kan.
Kansas’ high school student athletes are in good hands, thanks to embedded athletic trainers from University of Kansas Health System.
Benefiting Communities
For hospitals and health systems of every size and location, it’s critically important to adapt to the needs of their communities. Over the years, SBH Health System has shown its adaptability, evolving with shifting demographics and social determinants of health. In today’s conversation, Joanne M. Conroy, M.D., CEO and president of Dartmouth Health and 2024 Chair of AHA's Board, talks with David Perlstein, M.D., president and CEO of SBH Health System, to discuss how the organization is proactively improving the health and well-being of its patient population and community.
Benefiting Communities
NYC Health + Hospitals understands that the path to healing comes in many forms, including art.
Benefiting Communities
Hospitals and health systems are rightly called cornerstones of their communities, and none take that mission more seriously than Advocate Health.
Benefiting Communities
M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital
Maplewood, Minn.
Leaders at M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital in Minnesota are addressing crowding and capacity constraints by opening a new, 16-bed short-stay and observation unit.
Benefiting Communities
Corewell Health
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Rex, a 10-year-old German Sheppard that has served as a resident security police K9 for Corewell Health since 2014, retired last August. But before leaving the health system's hallways forever, he reunited with a familiar face he once comforted.
Benefiting Communities
Virtua Health, one of South Jersey’s biggest health care providers, is leading the way in partnership with The Michaels Organization to construct a 60,000-square-foot, multiuse building with 47 apartments as well as a medical practice in Camden.
Benefiting Communities
Samaritan Health Services recently cut the ribbon on a new family health center in a rural Oregon town to ensure local access to family practice and urgent care services, thus filling a gap in care for a community where locals were forced to travel out of town to receive not just basic care, but to fill basic prescription needs.
Benefiting Communities
A city ordinance passed in 2020 prohibits massive deconstruction project debris from being hauled away to the dump. Instead, most of the material left from the brick-by-brick demolition of the Boulder Community Health hospital has been recycled and repurposed, keeping 60.8 million pounds out of the landfill.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
In the third of this four-part conversation, three experts from Scripps Health, Chris Van Gorder, president & CEO, Shane Thielman, corporate senior vice president and chief information officer, and Gerry Soderstrom, corporate senior vice president and chief audit, compliance & risk officer talk through the day the organization experienced a cyberattack.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
MultiCare Health System
Tacoma, Wash.
Twelve years after losing her husband David to lung cancer, Bev Brookshire faced her own health scare. When she began to experience shortness of breath and wheezing, a CT scan at Washington state-based MultiCare revealed a nodule on her lung.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
A study from Nemours Children’s Health surveyed 350 pediatric orthopedic trauma patients who, due to the nature of their injuries, were transferred to pediatric hospitals from other local facilities, and found that more than a third of those transfers could have been avoided — meaning the patients would have gotten faster care at a much lower cost — through the use of telemedicine.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
A team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is setting out on a two-year project that aims to make AI chatbots more effective — and more empathetic — when part of behavioral health care treatment.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
West Virginia University Health System
Morgantown, W.V.
Poppy McGee may not have made it to Thanksgiving. A stroke and brain surgery had already left McGee, 73, in a medically precarious state. Then doctors discovered a severe problem with her aortic valve and a blockage in her coronary artery, which were both contributing to heart failure.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
The Center for Hand Surgery at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst restored the use of Harry Perks' right hand after 10 years of immobility due to spasticity from a drug overdose.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
Mass General for Children
Boston, Mass.
Savannah, a 12-year-old from North Andover, Mass., loves gymnastics, soccer and swimming — activities she is enjoying two years after being diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, and adjusting to living with a prosthetic leg.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
In December, OSF Children’s Hospital of Illinois announced surgeons had successfully performed the world’s first implantation of an extravascular implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (EV-ICD) in a 2-year-old child who had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.
Innovation, Research and Quality Improvement
Bartlett Regional Hospital
Juneau, Ala.
In 2018, collaborating with community partners to better serve its patients in the greater Juneau, Alaska region, Bartlett Regional Hospital implemented an emergency department information exchange system that made possible real-time information sharing that is imperative for coordinated care efforts.
Prevention and Wellness
Rogers Behavioral Health
Oconomowoc Wis.
In this conversation, Jerry Halverson, M.D., consult liaison psychiatrist at Rogers Behavioral Health, discusses the impact of these integrations on patient outcomes, and how payers are providing reimbursement for these rapidly growing care models.
Prevention and Wellness
SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital
St. Louis, Mo.
In this conversation, Chris DeRienzo, M.D., SVP and chief physician executive at the AHA, speaks with three WISH Center experts about how its approach is helping to protect the health of new mothers and their babies.
Prevention and Wellness
WellSpan Health
York, Pa.
As we observe AHA’s 8th annual #HAVHope Day, it's an important reminder that many hospital and health system leaders are looking for solutions to address the root causes of violence in their organizations and communities.
Prevention and Wellness
Valleywise Health
Phoenix, Ariz.
One year after the officially declared end of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., caregivers are patiently restoring the service capacities that the epidemic robbed from their communities.
Prevention and Wellness
Charlotte Hungerford Hospital
Torrington, Conn.
Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, located in Torrington, Ct., and part of Hartford HealthCare, is continuously “expanding and tweaking” its behavioral health offerings to ensure the people it serves in northwestern Connecticut communities get the care they need.
Prevention and Wellness
Broaddus Hospital
Philippi, W.V.
Davis Medical Center
Elkins, W.V.
In this conversation, Broaddus Hospital's Dana Gould, CEO, and Donetta McVicker, program director of Senior Life Solutions, share how they are working to identify and fill the unique mental health needs of their older community members.
Prevention and Wellness
University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital
Lexington, Ky.
Visitors to the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital Pavilion on March 20 got an immersive lesson on colorectal health, thanks to a stroll through a 12-foot inflatable colon.
Prevention and Wellness
Butler Hospital
Providence, R.I.
Providence, R.I.’s Butler Hospital, a part of Care New England, is reaching out to teens as part of its mission as the state’s only nonprofit, freestanding psychiatric hospital.
Prevention and Wellness
Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center's new intensive outpatient program is designed to support young people dealing with issues such as anxiety, depression, stress, trauma and suicidal ideation that impact their school, relationships, family and/or community.