Chairperson's File
Blog posts from 2025 AHA Board Chair Tina Freese Decker, president and CEO of Corewell Health, and past chairs.
The AHA/HRET HEN project ended in December 2014, but quality improvement work continues at hospitals: Multidisciplinary teams work to advance improvement efforts to reach their quality and patient safety goals.
The Leadership Toolkit for Redefining the H: Engaging Trustees and Communities, including the report and separate tools and resources sections, is available to download for free at AHA.org.
HPOE.org has additional resources on health care transformation.
By focusing on preventive care and health promotion, hospitals are catalyzing change in their communities. Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Azle is one such example. The 36-bed hospital, part of Texas Health Resources, determined that a large number of its patients' emergency room visits were鈥
University Hospitals, Cleveland, is advancing multiple care equity initiatives. The over 2,000-bed, $3 billion health care system has used the AHA's Diversity and Disparities Benchmark Study of U.S. Hospitals. Minorities comprise 26% of UH board seats, compared with 14% nationally. Minorities鈥
Change can be uncomfortable. But no matter how sophisticated, hospitals and health care systems need to progress鈥攖o redefine, change and be relevant. Hospital teams are working to find better ways to provide high-quality care at lower costs to improve the health of people in their communities鈥
Building a culture that is inclusive and founded on principles of diversity was a 鈥渒ey destination point鈥 defined several years ago by the board of CHRISTUS Health.
Identifying solutions to reduce hospital-acquired conditions. Working to spread this knowledge to other hospitals and health care providers. Plus, rigorous strategic planning, initiative implementation, data collection and analysis, and continuous assessment: This describes the work of the Hospital鈥
Community members are integral partners at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania, helping to ensure high-quality, equitable care. Based in the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Hazleton, LVHN for many years had provided culturally competent services, including telephonic interpreters,鈥
Preventing falls has been in the news recently, and with good reason: Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries; in 2012, 24 million nonfatal falls among older adults were treated in EDs and more than 722,000 of these patients were hospitalized, per the CDC鈥
How is your hospital building a culture of health in the community? That is, a culture in which adults and children鈥攚hatever their ethnic, geographic, racial or socioeconomic circumstance may be鈥攍ive longer, healthier lives and have access to high-quality health care when, where and how鈥