Chairperson's File
Blog posts from 2025 AHA Board Chair Tina Freese Decker, president and CEO of Corewell Health, and past chairs.
Improving discharge can reap multiple benefits for patients and providers, including reducing readmissions. At Dameron Hospital, a 202-bed community hospital in Stockton, Calif., staff aimed to reduce readmissions for congestive heart failure patients, expecting to learn about decreasing鈥
Telepsychiatry is playing a pivotal role in providing timely care to hospitalized mental health patients and to others beyond hospital walls. At Seton Shoal Creek Hospital, a mental health hospital in Austin, Texas, Kari Wolf, M.D., vice president, medical affairs, started using telemedicine to鈥
More than 64 million surgeries are performed annually in the United States. Preventing surgical site infections is one of 10 focus areas of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Partnership for Patients initiative. On its 鈥減athway to zero surgical site infections,鈥 Kaiser鈥
Ensuring the highest quality for patient care means continuously reviewing processes and outcomes. Those words are straight from the website of Verde Valley Medical Center, a 99-bed, nonprofit, rural hospital in Cottonwood, Ariz. VVMC reviews processes and outcomes to prevent inpatient harm in鈥
Patients admitted to a hospital for one condition鈥攃ongestive heart failure, for example鈥攁re typically readmitted for something completely different. University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Medical Center, in Little Rock, is working to reduce medication-related readmissions, which have鈥
April is National Minority Health Month. Launched in April 2001 by the National Minority Health Foundation, National Minority Health Month addresses the needs of African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans and other minority populations. To commemorate the occasion, Equity of Care is鈥
The chair files highlight stories of hospitals and health systems that are implementing innovative practices and streamlined processes to improve the quality of health care for patients in their communities. We encourage you to submit your hospital, health system or association's story to hpoe@aha.鈥
The Backyard Initiative at Allina Health, based in Minnesota, is truly taking care beyond hospital walls. BYI focuses on seven neighborhoods that surround Allina's Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Phillips Eye Institute, and corporate headquarters and are home to many residents with poor health鈥
Effective care transitions programs can do more than improve patient care: patients learn to manage their own health and can avoid a hospital readmission. Thomasville (NC) Medical Center, a 146-bed hospital, implemented its TMC to Home program in July 2011 to target at-risk patients with acute MI,鈥
A commitment to diversity came first. That was followed by specific action projects to increase diversity in management and leadership and increase cultural proficiency in health care. In early 2006, an ad hoc committee at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, reviewed the organization's work鈥