Quality & Patient Safety
America’s hospitals are committed to sharing meaningful, accurate hospital quality information with the patients they serve. Hospitals also support well-designed pay-for-performance programs that can help move the health care delivery system from volume to value.
At the same time, however,…
Trustee talking points
Three percent of patients admitted to children’s hospitals are at least 18 years old, and trends indicate that their numbers will only grow.
As these children with once-fatal diagnoses such as congenital heart disease survive well into adulthood, a treatment…
Trustee talking points
An ever-increasing amount of data is available for health care leaders to use in making decisions about drugs, devices and procedures.
The flood of data can lead to poor results if it's not interpreted correctly.
Board members need to be alert to randomness…
John Combes, M.D., president of the American Hospital Association’s Center for Healthcare Governance and the AHA’s chief medical officer and senior vice president, will retire in October after almost 12 years leading the association’s governance and physician leadership efforts.
The women and men who work in America’s hospitals witness the toll of the opioid epidemic on patients and the health of their communities every day.
While prescription opioids can be a safe and necessary part of pain management, these drugs also carry serious risks of harm because of the…
Hep C deaths at all-time high
19,659: Number of U.S. deaths related to the hepatitis C virus in 2014, the highest number in history. The number of acute HCV cases hit 2,194 in 2014, more than 2.5 times the number in 2010.
Increased testing and increased access to treatment are considered the…
Hospitals and health systems throughout the country face many of the same challenges. One of the most dangerous — and almost always overlooked (if an organization is even aware of it) — is the persistent use of inconsistent terminology.
When there are a lack of rules guiding…
AHA Resources
Understanding board’s role in hospital–physician relations
The American Hospital Association's Center for Healthcare Governance invites hospital executives, board members, clinical leaders and others to view a three-part webinar to help health systems continually…
You might conclude, judging by the media fixation on whoever says the most incendiary and idiotic things the loudest, that deep thinking about hard issues has gone utterly out of style.
Emily Friedman proved otherwise. In her writing for this publication and others, she challenged us to examine…