Letter/Comment
AHA comments in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Request for Information regarding the Medicare Advantage program.
The Important Role Hospitals Have in Serving Their Communities
Hospitals and health systems and their teams have been on the front lines battling the COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. Despite the many challenges they have faced, the dedication to patient care has never been stronger and all members of our hospital teams have remained steadfast in their commitment to provide care and improve health.
Hospitals and health care workers have stood strong for their communities, and they have a vital role in our society to keep communities healthy.
HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED
- Share your stories with AHA: AHA wants to help elevate the impactful work you do in your community. Please consider submitting examples of the many ways your hospital/health system benefits your community via this form.
- Share your pandemic experiences: Are you a caregiver that has worked through the COVID-19 pandemic? If you are willing to share your important perspective, please consider joining your fellow health care employees who have shared their experiences during the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic #WeAreHealthcare initiative. If interested please email AHA for more information.
- Identify a hospital ambassador: AHA is working to amplify the field’s collective voice by creating a group of hospital and health system ambassadors to tell their hospital story through op-eds, audio news releases and other AHA-supported media opportunities. Sign up for more information about how your hospital can join us in balancing the narrative with a stronger chorus of hospital examples and voices. If interested please add an ambassador via this form.
- Deploy your social media channels: Tag the @AHAhospitals, and use the hashtag #myhospital so we can send a collective message about the work you do on behalf of patients and communities. Hospitals and health systems can help tell their story by sharing messages on social media using new graphics and other resources from the "Stories Behind the 'H'" digital toolkit.
Hospitals and health systems can help tell their story by sharing messages on social media using graphics and other resources from AHA's online toolkit.
#WeAreHealthcare
Workforce Campaign
Additional AHA Resources
Tell us how hospitals have provided care and supported health in your community throughout the pandemic.
Case Studies
Access to Care
Improving access and quality of maternal and infant services in rural Iowa through a regional center of excellence.
Access to Care
North Mississippi Health Services has partnered with the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association to improve community health and wellness at the Tupelo Farmers’ Depot.
Access to Care
Big city and rural hospitals partner to address critical community health needs. The goal of the partnership is to improve access to care and keep specialty resources close to home.
Access to Care
.jpg)
Titus Regional Medical Center, the last independent hospital in Northeast Texas, serves rural counties stretching along the Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana borders. TRMC battled through five surges of COVID in the past 24 months. But despite having the highest COVID rates per 100,000 in the 27 counties of Northeast Texas, the health system was able to navigate the needs of local residents, saving many lives and ranking as having the lowest mortality rate of any county in the area.
Access to Care
Denver Health has long supported LGBTQ+ patients by providing them with a safe place to go to get their health care. Through a wide range of LGBTQ+ health services, the hospital makes sure that every LGBTQ+ person is met with open, welcoming, safe and affirming care from a team of LGBTQ+ friendly doctors and staff.
Access to Care
Opened June 2020, the Cletus Jeckering Family Center of Care – Ohio City Health Center offers health services to the school’s nearly 700 students, as well as their families and the entire community.
Access to Care
As a result of this initial work, Allina Health discovered that colorectal cancer screening rates among the health system’s Blacks and African Americans were extremely low compared to other patient populations. The problem: low-literate individuals and culturally diverse individuals with limited English proficiency faced great difficulties in understanding health information and navigating the health care system.
Access to Care
ChristianaCare has teamed up with Kuumba Academy Charter School in Wilmington, Delaware, to establish a new student-based health center that will provide onsite preventive care, mental health care and acute care services for all 637 Kuumba Academy students. It’s just one of more than 20 student-based health centers already supported by the health system. The student-based health center is staffed by nurses and doctors who provide a range of services to meet kids' and teens' health care needs. Services can include checkups, lab tests, prescriptions, counseling and care for chronic illnesses, such as asthma and diabetes.
Access to Care
MUSC in Charleston, South Carolina, has developed a school-based telehealth program that contributes to improved health outcomes for children in many rural and underserved communities across the state. Data points to the program’s efficiency and effectiveness in improving health care access. For kids, the “cool” factor makes telehealth fun too.
Access to Care
Through Ascension’s Medical Mission at Home events, the health system delivers free medical care to those with limited access and who are struggling in the communities they serve. The program provides real-time delivery of organized health and social services to those who would not have access to care with follow-up care and continuity as needed. These free community health events give low-income and uninsured populations access to needed health services.
Access to Care
The Novant Health UVA Health System mobile mammography unit is a motorized coach that brings a mammography machine to where you live, work, and attend civic activities and faith-based services. Our goal is to ensure all women have access to high-quality breast health services, regardless of ability to pay or travel to a full-service imaging center.
Access to Care
Holy Cross Health knows thousands of men, women and children in their region have no health insurance and few resources to obtain ongoing health services. They have established community benefit programs to help residents obtain the care needed to maintain a healthy life and to give families a healthy start, with services including: health centers that provide patients with a medical home to access primary care; OB/GYN clinics to support women before, during and after the birth of a baby; and financial assistance programs and counselors to help reduce the financial burden that health care can have on vulnerable families.
Access to Care
Quality, accessible and affordable health care is critically important for a child’s physical and mental health, which is why Stanford Children’s is committed to improving access to primary care for children, teens and expectant mothers through transportation to medical treatment, pediatric care, education, counseling, legal advocacy and more.
Access to Care
Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJC) invests millions of dollars and many volunteer hours in the St. Louis community each year, and the impact can be seen in the thousands of people whose lives are better today as a result. Throughout the pandemic, the need for community benefit programs and services endured. COVID-19 was not the only illness at hand, and patients still faced financial hardships to deal with unexpected or overwhelming medical events. BJC patients with a demonstrated financial need received more than $459.1 million in charity care or other financial assistance in 2020.
Benefits to Your Community
AtlantiCare hosts a High School Hiring Blitz and offers jobs to more than 30 high school seniors. It’s a new approach to fill the talent gap in health care by creating programs that build a long-term pipeline of prospective employees.
Benefits to Your Community
A unique intervention and mentoring program at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital uses a public health approach to provide equitable, trauma-informed care to patients and families impacted by violence.
Benefits to Your Community
In June 2022, Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center partnered with Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast to open a donor milk depot in Bangor, Maine, bringing the number of milk banks in the state to seven. These milk banks rely on donated breast milk, which is tested, pasteurized and then given to infants in need of a nutritional boost.
Benefits to Your Community
NorthShore University Health System is making its most significant investment in health equity yet. The health system is taking action to address health disparities across the communities it serves by enlisting and mobilizing capable leaders, a diversified workforce and the right community partners.
Benefits to Your Community
UK HealthCare has created a unique partnership with Bluegrass Community & Technical College (BCTC) and school districts in the state to support students interested in a health care career and increase interest in the health care field.
Benefits to Your Community
The health system, based in Corvallis, Oregon, collaborates with local organizations to serve people who need health care, regardless of their circumstances, and to keep them healthy once they leave the hospital and health care facilities.
Benefits to Your Community
Luminis Health’s Vision 2030 Living Healthier Together, a 10-year strategic plan, focuses on community, wellness and experience, not just illness and treatment.
Benefits to Your Community
Transforming conversations into sustainable partnerships that are having a positive impact on the health of people living in the city’s neighborhoods. One initiative to help strengthen local communities is through a partnership between Cleveland Clinic and Evergreen Cooperative Laundry.
Benefits to Your Community
Addressing the social drivers that influence health is a strategic imperative at UMass Memorial Medical Center, the four-campus academic medical center that’s part of the larger health system of the same name. The medical center — the largest safety net hospital in Massachusetts outside of Boston — is located in Worcester, which has a high poverty rate and the poor health outcomes and barriers to accessing health care that come with it.
Benefits to Your Community
When the community needed it most during the pandemic, Texas Health Resources, located in Arlington, Texas, reallocated $5.2 million in grants to address hunger, housing and other social needs in the communities it serves — when individuals and families needed it most. The financial move was made in response to the economic consequences caused by COVID-19, which exacerbated the disparities in health outcomes for marginalized people, including low income families and older adults.
Benefits to Your Community
As an anchor institution, University Hospitals (UH) is in a unique position to influence population health and advance economic opportunities for their communities. They have made great strides in contributing to the health and welfare of Northeast Ohioans as well as addressing social determinants of health. UH provided $3.24 billion over the past decade in community benefit through the deployment of targeted programs and initiatives, including $483 million in 2020 alone.
Benefits to Your Community
Cincinnati Children’s values it’s partnerships in all the communities it serves, and in particular Avondale, the place they call home. They are making investments and connecting with Avondale neighbors in meaningful ways through a primary focus areas to reduce infant mortality and prematurity, improve kindergarten readiness and third-grade reading and improve the community’s health.
Benefits to Your Community
Silver Cross Hospital has been committed to taking care of those in need of healthcare. Every day, the hospital tries to fulfil the promise to treat all patients The Way They Should Be Treated while continuing to provide added benefits to the communities they serve. They do this in many ways including community partnerships, education, volunteerism, donations and subsidizing much-needed programs and services.
Benefits to Your Community
Northridge Hospital is dedicated to improving community health and delivering community health benefits through engagement in specific programs and services designed to address identified significant community health needs including:
- homelessness and affordable housing
- obesity
- mental health
- substance use
- diabetes and other chronic disease wellness
- child and adult violence prevention
- COVID-19 community support
Benefits to Your Community
Virginia’s hospitals and health systems provided more $3.1 billion in community benefit and other types of community support in the Commonwealth in 2020, in addition to accounting for $45 billion in positive economic impact for the state.
COVID-19 and Vaccination Efforts
While masks have been removed from most school supply lists this season, health care officials say new variants, such as BA.5, can spread quickly putting kids and families at risk.
COVID-19 and Vaccination Efforts
Riley Children’s Health is working to ensure that children, including those under age 5, get the COVID-19 vaccine, by hosting vaccine clinics across the Indianapolis area and ramping up access to the vaccine in pediatrician offices. The hospital also partnered with The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to vaccinate hundreds of children.
COVID-19 and Vaccination Efforts
To encourage Arkansas residents of all ages to get the COVID-19 vaccine and booster, Baptist Health has set up vaccine clinics across the state at banks, churches, schools, shopping malls and more. These community locations provide convenient access for people to get their COVID-19 shots and, in some cases, receive an incentive. Most recently, the health system is holding immunization clinics with free back-to-school shots, including the COVID-19 vaccine, for children 12 and older.
COVID-19 and Vaccination Efforts
Red Sox baseball players are among the Boston area community members who have recorded videos sharing why they got the COVID-19 vaccine. Posted on the Beth Israel Lahey Health website, the stories inspire others to get vaccinated and are part of the health system’s wide-ranging efforts to encourage COVID-19 vaccination.
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
To encourage all New Yorkers to get a COVID-19 vaccine and booster, NYC Health + Hospitals is featuring stories and videos of people sharing why they got their shots, including 99-year-old New Yorker Lettice Graham
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
Children’s Hospital Colorado has kept families informed with up-to-date news, resources and expert clinical advice about COVID-19 and vaccines. The hospital recently partnered with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to administer COVID-19 vaccines to children between 6 months and 5 years at mobile clinics at the hospital’s campuses.
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
Seattle Children’s Hospital is taking a collaborative approach with parents to vaccinate young children against COVID-19.
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s COVID-19 vaccine confidence virtual learning courses are designed to turn community leaders and influencers, such as PTA leaders, school nurses, faith-based leaders and local business owners, into vaccine advocates and promote vaccine acceptance in their communities.
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
Omaha-based Nebraska Medicine shares stories about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, supported by analyses of 2021 COVID-19 statewide data. Nebraska Medicine is sharing this information as part of its continuing communications outreach to encourage people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and booster.
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
Though 80% of Rhode Islanders have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, Care New England says it’s not enough until all eligible are vaccinated and boosted. Care New England, based in Providence, Rhode Island, has released a series of short videos with health care leaders thanking community members for being diligent about getting vaccinated but also urging them to “get a booster vaccine today.”
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
In this Advancing Health podcast, Jeffrey Flaks, CEO of Hartford HealthCare, and Rebecca Stewart, vice president of content strategy, discuss the health system’s efforts to connect with the community during the pandemic, build trust and get people vaccinated. Flaks and Stewart join Kathy Cummings, AHA’s director of communications, for a conversation about how Hartford HealthCare is changing health care for the better, connecting with people in meaningful ways and helping get more people vaccinated against COVID-19.
COVID-19 Care and Vaccine Efforts
Vermont sits atop all other states with the highest percentage of its population fully vaccinated against COVID-19: As of early February 2022, 80% of Vermont residents have completed vaccination and 64% have received a booster. And although hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are higher this winter than during the peak in winter 2021 — largely attributed to the coronavirus delta and omicron variants — the hospitalization rate in Vermont was the lowest across the United States.
Improving Health and Wellness
The Brookings Health System Foundation makes it easy for colleagues to help other colleagues struggling through tough times exacerbated by the pandemic through an employee emergency fund program. The program offers a wide range of support services, including meals and cleaning services, to staff working long hours.
Improving Health and Wellness
Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Mary Free Bed provides and promotes competitive and recreational wheelchair and adaptive sports teams and classes for people of all ages with disabilities. With one of the nation’s largest sports program for people with disabilities, the rehabilitation hospital offers a variety of opportunities for people to increase their physical activity, reduce the risk of or help manage chronic conditions — and have fun while doing it.
Improving Health and Wellness
In Georgia, a hospital and its affiliated OB/GYN and pediatrics offices are implementing a new program to help all babies and toddlers gain access to foundational skills necessary to build literacy. Called Talk with My Baby, the program aims to help every child learn to read by the third grade.
Improving Health and Wellness
WellSpan Health, which serves central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, has bolstered its efforts to become a more diverse and data-driven culture, resulting in positive outcomes for patients and staff.
Improving Health and Wellness
Health care disparities exist among the LGBTQ community because patients often times refuse to seek treatment or assistance worrying that health care providers may not respect their gender identity or sexual orientation. Inova Health opened the first medical clinic in Northern Virginia, called Inova Pride, dedicated to the health and well-being of the LGBTQ+ community.
Improving Health and Wellness
All employees at University Hospitals, based in Cleveland, are aligned around its Zero Harm initiative: zero clinical harm, zero suffering from a poor patient experience, zero inequities and zero wasted resources.
Improving Health and Wellness
St. James Parish Hospital’s 3D mammography team receives the Skin Marking in Mammography Excellence Award from Beekley Medical for clear communication and precise interpretation for the best patient care.
Improving Health and Wellness
In the fall of 2020, CRMC’s population health division launched a three-month campaign that covered multiple topics dealing with opioid use disorder: how to get help, how to talk to providers about alternatives to opioids and the importance of stigma reduction.
Improving Health and Wellness
According to a 2020 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, more than 50 million Americans are family caregivers and their health is significantly declining, which negatively impacts their ability to care for their loved ones living with serious illnesses. Community Memorial Health System and its partners created a caregiver navigator program to support family caregivers and integrate them as part of the patients’ health care teams.
Improving Health and Wellness
Teams work together across the health system and with community partners to meet the care needs of patients and families during every stage of life and health. The health system incorporates age-friendly care into annual wellness visits for older adult patients and includes age-friendly initiatives as part of its annual strategic and financial planning.
Improving Health and Wellness
Hackensack Meridian Health’s Maternal Health Task Force, a blue-ribbon panel of internal and external experts dedicated to improving maternal health outcomes. The task force’s goal is to make New Jersey the safest state in the nation to have a baby.
Improving Health and Wellness
At St. John’s Riverside Hospital, two-thirds of the patient population is over the age of 65. The leadership team at the hospital in Yonkers, New York, has made providing age-friendly care a priority. They know that providing care that is age friendly helps older adults enjoy a better quality of life.
Improving Health and Wellness
With in-person events no longer possible due to stay-at- home orders and health and safety restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Carilion Clinic’s Community Health and Outreach team found a new way to continue to bring free health education to the community. Beginning in April 2020, health educators in all hospital markets transitioned to “Take a Break” virtual education sessions to provide timely, relevant tips focused on improving well-being and maintaining a healthy lifestyle during an uncertain time.
Improving Health and Wellness
To help empower all members of the community to enjoy the healthiest lifestyle possible, Hunting Hospital is dedicated to providing health and outreach services to meet the needs of its community. The hospital provides free health screening, counseling, education and referrals. Staff are active all year participating in community, faith organization, and school health fairs and events, working with many community-based organizations, health clinics and schools. These interactions inform the hospital about community health needs and allow them to respond with appropriate services.
Improving Health and Wellness
The Nuvance Health hospitals are dedicated to serving the community as a wellness resource. This includes providing health education and wellness opportunities, offering community outreach programs to promote wellness and preventive medicine. Offerings include:
- Speaker’s bureau for nonprofit organizations and civic clubs
- Holding blood drives
- Hosting health fairs and a variety of community wellness events
- Community forums on disease management and education
- Health Talk, public education television show to promote healthy lifestyles
- Opioid-abuse prevention initiative
Improving Health and Wellness
Lakewood Engage is the cornerstone initiative of Lakewood Health System’s community health division and the engine that drives all its food insecurity programs. In 2020, Lakewood Health System connected more than 1,300 children, seniors, low-income individuals and patients with chronic health conditions to one of its seven programs designed to address the challenges and health consequences of hunger and food security.
Since the inception of Lakewood Engage in 2013, it has evolved from simply connecting local produce growers to patients at its hospital-based Staples Area Farmers Market to constructing a comprehensive clinic-based referral program that prescribes local produce to patients through its “Food Farmacy” market.
Improving Health and Wellness
The lack of community mental health programs means that patients wait until their situations become a crisis before reaching out for care. Memorial Herman operated three mental health crisis clinics that operate as “urgent care” options for individuals experiencing mental health and behavioral concerns. They offer emergency medicine administration, counseling, solution-focused intervention, psychosocial assessments and safety planning. The staff work to connect patients with an outpatient providers and arrange for follow-up appointments.
Innovation and Research
An innovative yet simple approach to improving perinatal care, called TeamBirth, was piloted by four U.S. hospitals including Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This teamwork and communication initiative is empowering laboring moms and supporting clinical care teams, while reducing the number of unnecessary cesarean deliveries and increasing patient satisfaction scores. TeamBirth now has been adopted by all Tulsa delivery hospitals and is being implemented across the country
Innovation and Research
Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City is one of the first to use a break-through test to detect early signs of cancer. With a simple blood draw, the test can scan for more than 50 types of cancer, including those not commonly screened for today.
Innovation and Research
Researchers with the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Pediatric Cancer Genome Project investigate childhood cancers and incorporate findings into clinical trials at the hospital and internationally. The goal is to improve cure rates and long-term outcomes for several types of childhood cancers.
Innovation and Research
Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans is using predictive analytics to improve patient safety, care delivery and health outcomes. For example, the health system applies machine learning to reduce health care-acquired Clostridioides difficile infections.
Innovation and Research
Innovation and Research
Intermountain Healthcare is using precision genomics to personalize care and treatment for diseases like cancer, determine an individual’s risk for certain genetic conditions and identify how well an individual will respond to specific medications and dosage. The overall goal is to provide a better patient experience while helping to reduce costs.
Innovation and Research
OSF HealthCare, based in Peoria, Illinois, launched OSF Innovation to “embrace change and take on the largest health care challenges.” The team assessed what was needed to improve health outcomes and safety, increase access to care and make care more affordable.
Innovation and Research
The mission of the Technology & Innovation Development Office (TIDO) is to maximize the impact of Boston Children’s innovations on patient health while enhancing the research endeavor. The work translates the laboratory and clinical research excellence of Boston Children's Hospital into products for the public benefit. TIDO uses a multi-faceted approach to promote, support and develop research, technology and clinical innovations through the protection and licensing of intellectual property, investing in Boston Children's technologies, and establishing strong research and development partnerships with industry throughout the innovation-to-product life cycle.
Innovation and Research
The Cedars-Sinai Accelerator supports the growth and development of early-stage companies that are developing health care solutions to transform health care quality, efficiency and care delivery. Forty-seven companies from around the world have participated in the three-month program that offers mentorship and the ability to collaborate with clinicians, researchers and other Cedars-Sinai experts. The program is designed to improve care delivery by helping entrepreneurs bring their innovative technology products to market. The program is three months long and in addition to funding, offers mentorship from more than 300 leading clinicians and executives, access to Cedars-Sinai and exposure to a broad network of entrepreneurs and investors.
Innovation and Research
The Mercy Health Research & Innovation group operates as a research and innovation hub for the health system and is integral to organization’s mission to improve the health of communities, provide patients with the opportunity to participate in cutting edge research and support and grow clinical research and innovation with the priority to drive improvements in standard of care for patients.
Innovation and Research
The Montefiore Einstein Center for Innovation in Simulation was established by Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The innovation center features state-of-the-art simulation technologies and is equipped for medical education and research, combining nursing schools and physician care to foster an environment that focuses on training procedures for health care professionals at all stages of their careers.
Innovation and Research
The MedStar Telehealth Innovation Center was established with the goal of supporting and coordinating telehealth services. It is housed within the MedStar Institute for Innovation (MI2), and is a system-wide resource that provides telehealth infrastructure, best practices, subject matter expertise, project implementation, and programmatic operational support. Even more important now during the pandemic, key areas that MTIC supports include the MedStar eVisit urgent care on demand platform, video visits, ED teletriage, and more.
Related Resources
Fact Sheets
Medicare pays most acute-care hospitals under the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS). Some of these hospitals receive additional support from Medicare…
AHA Center for Health Innovation Market Scan
Amazon Care, the virtual and in-home primary care service developed by its parent company in 2019 to serve Amazon staff and later other employers, launched…
Advancing Health Podcast
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…
Case Studies
Improving access and quality of maternal and infant services in rural Iowa through a regional center of excellence.
Case Studies
An innovative yet simple approach to improving perinatal care, called TeamBirth, was piloted by four U.S. hospitals including Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa,…