American Medical Association Named Recipient Of AHA Award Of Honor

WASHINGTON (April 21, 2022) – The American Hospital Association (AHA) today announced that its 2021 Award of Honor will be presented to the American Medical Association (AMA) in recognition of its valuable leadership and collaboration with AHA on advocacy and communications during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Award of Honor recognizes individuals or organizations for exemplary contributions to the health and well-being of our nation through leadership on major health policy or social initiatives.

AMA President Gerald Harmon, M.D., will receive the award during a ceremony on April 25 at the AHA Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMA, the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the AHA forged a strong and influential partnership to help ensure the health of the nation. The three associations collaborated on advocacy that helped secure billions of dollars of funding for hospital and health systems’ many emergency expenses; direct payments to health care personnel, facilities, or schools and daycare centers so frontline personnel could continue to work; and to create surge capacity for the care of sick COVID-19 patients. The associations also worked together in issuing open letters and public service announcements about wearing masks, washing hands, scaling back holiday gatherings, and urging health care professionals and the public to get vaccinated.

“The close partnership of the AHA, AMA and ANA during the COVID-19 pandemic was essential,” said Rick Pollack, AHA president and CEO. “Together with the AMA, we helped secure critical funding and supplies for our hospital team members and developed public service announcements encouraging vaccinations that saved lives.”

“Facing the greatest test to our health system in a century – the greatest test many of us will face in our professional lives – America’s physicians and frontline health care workers rose to the occasion in caring for our patients in the fight against COVID-19,” said AMA President Gerald E. Harmon, M.D. “From advocating for PPE, testing and critical funding to keep our hospitals running, to validating the science of vaccine development and urging the general public to get vaccinated, the AMA, AHA and ANA have worked together since the earliest days of the pandemic. On behalf of the AMA – the physicians powerful ally in patient care – it is my pleasure to accept this award.”

As the only medical association that convenes 190-plus state and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health care. The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises and driving the future of medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care.

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Contact:       Marie Johnson, mjohnson@aha.org      
                           Colin Milligan, cmilligan@aha.org

About the American Hospital Association
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA advocates on behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinician partners – including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers – and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides insight and education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA website at www.aha.org.