AHA Names Rural Hospital Leadership Team Award Winner and Finalists

WASHINGTON (December 20, 2023) – The American Hospital Association (AHA) today announced the team from Queen’s North Hawaiʻi Community Hospital, a 35-bed rural acute care hospital located in Waimea (Kamuela) on Hawai‘i Island, as the 2023 recipient of the Rural Hospital Leadership Team Award. The award recognizes small or rural hospital leaders who guide their hospital and community through change and innovation. The awardees display outstanding leadership, responsiveness to their community’s health needs and a collaborative process that has led to measurable outcomes. The award will be presented at the 37th annual AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference, which will be held Feb. 11-14 in Orlando.

Queen’s North Hawaiʻi Community Hospital serves a population that is approximately 30% Native Hawaiian, and some communities in its service area have even larger percentages. Native Hawaiians experience tremendous health disparities with poorer health status, higher chronic disease risk and a life expectancy that is seven years less than everyone else in the state. Hawai’i Island faces significant disparities in access to health care due to provider shortages, limited health services and challenges in transportation. Guided by its Kahua Ola (foundation of health) plan and Hawaii’s Community Health Needs Assessment, Queen’s North Hawaiʻi Community Hospital implemented initiatives toward eliminating the existing health disparities and improving the quality of life for vulnerable patients with complex care needs.

The AHA Rural Hospital Leadership Award also recognized the teams at Providence Alaska in Seward, Valdez and Kodiak, Alaska, and CEO Ella Goss; Cass Health in Atlantic, Iowa, and CEO Brett Altman; and Hannibal Regional Healthcare System in Hannibal, Mo., and Todd Ahrens president and CEO as finalists.

The Providence Alaska team had the urgent need of trying to fill vacant staff positions at their three critical access hospitals: a 25-bed hospital at Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, a six-bed hospital at Providence Seward Medical Center, and an 11-bed hospital at Providence Valdez Medical Center. Being properly staffed is mission-critical, but affordable housing proved to be the biggest obstacle to recruitment. The hospitals collaborated across distant locations to design local housing solutions to meet their needs. The Providence hospitals are feeling the positive impact as the use of travelers has dropped, employee satisfaction is rising, and stress on existing caregivers is being reduced.

Cass Health is a 25-bed critical access hospital in the heart of southwest Iowa. Cass Health is the only hospital in the region that provides labor and delivery services, and as a result, they’ve experienced significant growth in maternal health services. Another integral part of their success is their student experience program, which provided around 120 clinical opportunities in nursing, medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, radiology and others last year. A third area of excellence is Cass Health’s Health Equity Committee, which focuses on health disparities, social determinants of health and social needs. These initiatives allow Cass Health to provide outstanding care in Iowa.

Hannibal Regional Hospital is a 99-bed acute hospital in northeast Missouri. Hannibal was one of 15 national awardees to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to strengthen the health workforce by establishing new residency programs in rural communities. That funding will allow Hannibal to create a sustainable graduate medical education program, which will benefit more than 150,000 residents in a 13-county area. Hannibal’s innovative workforce pipeline starting in the K-12 setting, moving in to the community college level, university degree programs, and most recently the terminal degrees in internal medicine is a direct investment that will benefit the health care needs of rural Missouri for generations to come.

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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.