Advancing Health Podcast

America has seen soaring rates of fatal overdoses from opioid analgesics – that is prescription drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is often produced and sold illegally. Hospitals are trying to limit the amount of opioids leaving their doors while increasing education about opioid use and misuse among health care workers and patients and deploying new treatment models. In this episode – part four of AHA’s five-part series on opioid stewardship, Marie Cleary-Fishman, vice president of clinical quality at the American Hospital Association, is joined once again by Dr. Holly Geyer, hospital internal medicine practitioner subspecialized in addiction medicine at Mayo Clinic. The discussion: encouraging careful and selective use of long-term opioid therapy in the context of managing chronic pain through evidence-based prescribing guidelines, educating staff and patients, and improving the referral to treatment process

Since the start of the pandemic, foreign based ransomware gangs have dramatically increased targeting of U.S. hospitals and health systems and their mission critical service providers - with many becoming victim of high impact ransomware attacks. These attacks have disrupted hospital business operations, delayed health care delivery and risked patient safety - not only for the victim organization but also for interconnected providers on a regional basis. It is essential that health care organizations understand the current cyber risk landscape and understand that high impact ransomware attacks will disrupt every business, clinical and operational function in the organization – but they can also brace for impact, and prepare for recovery. Join us to hear to insights from health care cybersecurity experts, including our own John Riggi, AHA’s National Advisor for cybersecurity and risk, who spent nearly 30 years as a highly decorated veteran of the FBI and now serves as National Advisor for Cybersecurity and Risk at the American Hospital Association and their 5000+ member hospitals. John and his expert colleagues will discuss how hospitals and health systems can create a stronger cybersecurity posture to protect their expanded networks, their data, and most importantly, their patients and the communities they serve.

Some 57 million rural Americans depend on their hospital as an important source of care as well as a critical component of their area's economic and social fabric. In many areas, there is growing concern…that fabric is starting to fray.

The stresses of the past 2.5 years have affected every hospital and health system in America, none more so than rural hospitals. On this Leadership Dialogue Series podcast, AHA Board Chair Wright L. Lassiter III is joined by Dr. Julie Yaroch (Yarrow), president of ProMedica Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital in Adrian, Michigan. Lassiter and Yaroch talk about the issues that rural hospitals continue to face, including workforce shortages, increased costs of care, and an aging population. At the same time, patients living in rural communities must navigate challenges related to accessing care, such as lack of transportation and unreliable or unavailable internet access. Yaroch says collaboration is key right now. She describes how the hospital she leads views health care as a team approach and talks about its vital role as an anchor institution in the community.

Each day, more than 300 Americans are shot, and, according to the CDC, more than 110 are killed by gunfire. The Government Accountability Office reports that gun violence costs hospitals over $1B annually. Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric trauma surgeon and director of Northwell Health's Center for Gun Violence Research recently testified in front of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee on this topic. He sits down today with Laura Castellanos, associate director of the American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence initiative to discuss what we know about the cost to hospitals and health systems, as they treat a growing number of victims of gun violence. For more information on the work that Northwell’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention is doing, please click here.

Patients with complex medical and social needs are often challenging to treat in a traditional medical encounter. An intensive high-touch care delivery model in the outpatient setting can improve value for patients, providers and payers. In this podcast, Julia Resnick, director of AHA’s Strategic Initiatives is joined by Dr. Stacy Bank, medical director of University of Utah Health’s Intensive Outpatient Clinic and Chad Westover, CEO of University of Utah Health Plans. You’ll hear Dr. Bank and Chad discuss how the clinic is partnering with the health plan to provide wraparound medical and social care to some of the health care system’s most at-risk patients – and how the new model of care is benefiting the patients, the clinicians and the health plan. Learn more about University of Utah’s Intensive Outpatient Clinic in this short film, Meet Me Where I Am.