Denver Health’s Hospital Care Management (HCM) department underwent a 10-month transformation to address leadership instability, low employee engagement, and operational inefficiencies. A new interim leadership team unified inpatient and outpatient services, streamlined processes, and strengthened community partnerships, including transitional housing and guardianship collaborations. Key improvements included a 50 percent reduction in extended hospital stays, a rise in employee engagement (survey participation increased from 44 percent to 88 percent), and $500,000 in cost savings. These changes, supported by C-suite engagement and new escalation pathways, revitalized the department’s culture, enhanced patient care, and demonstrated sustainable financial and operational success.

Essential hospitals are acutely aware of the impact that a changing climate has on their ability to serve their patients and communities. Hear from leaders at three essential hospitals — Grady Memorial Hospital, in Atlanta; Jackson Memorial Hospital, in Miami; and Henry Ford Health, in Detroit — about their organizations’ journeys to develop long-term sustainability plans and identify opportunities for increasing efficiency and resilience. Gain strategies for engaging and receiving support from the C-suite, learn about the process of getting an energy audit at an essential hospital, and discover how essential hospitals measure ROI on energy-related investments.

Essential hospitals serve as lifelines to communities that face barriers to health care interventions. While these institutions are mission-driven and deeply rooted in service, they often operate within financial and operational constraints that limit their capacity for long-term strategic growth. Explore how essential hospitals can identify and capitalize on opportunities for sustainable expansion—both in services and in impact.

Attendees will gain insights into practical frameworks for strategic growth, including data-informed service line development, innovative partnership models, and the integration of technology to enhance care delivery and community engagement. Gain actionable strategies and inspiration to move from survival to strategic success.

Climate change and environmental factors are increasingly recognized as critical components of health and well-being that affect patient outcomes. Drawing from learnings at Parkland Health, in Dallas, we will illustrate the importance of targeting the environments where individuals live and their influence on health. This presentation highlights how climate affects health, positions climate resiliency as a key social driver of health, and underscores the need for collective leadership to drive meaningful change.

It is critical for hospitals to have a focused, multidisciplinary approach to decreasing workplace violence. Boston Medical Center (BMC) developed a governance structure to review data, review best practices, and prioritize key safety initiatives across campus. Hear how the hospital identified workplace violence as a component of registered nurse turnover and invested in a 24/7 behavioral response team (BRT) run by advanced practice registered nurses. Since the team’s launch, BMC reports a 40 percent decrease in physical assaults across the campus and 30 percent decrease in total restraint hours, and front-line staff report feeling supported in their work with challenging patients and families.

As the demand for health care professionals grows, hospitals are finding innovative ways to train the next generation of students. Discover how the Healthcare Explorers Internship Program at ECMC, in Buffalo, N.Y., offers high school students a unique, immersive summer experience to explore diverse health care careers. As Western New York’s only level I adult trauma center and a regional leader in transplantation, cancer care, and orthopedics, ECMC provides students with hands-on exposure across more than 12 specialties. This program, which has engaged more than 240 students from 50+ schools, helps students discover the full spectrum of health care professions while enhancing their resumes and building valuable networks.

NYC Health + Hospitals, the nation’s largest municipal safety net health care system, was in dire straits with a whopping $1.8 billion structural deficit in 2017. Mountains of consultant reports called for continued headcount reduction, closing services, and even closing hospitals. A new leadership team arrived in early 2018 and leaned in on kindness and humanism as foundational elements of a turnaround that has seen the structural deficit closed and a system that is thriving and growing. This session shares the roadmap of this more than five–year journey to transform the culture and turn the ship around.

Learn how Denver Health developed a comprehensive registry that enables more comprehensive and inclusive identification of patients experiencing homelessness for interventions critical in advancing health equity. The health system also invests in necessary housing through a contract for respite beds, rental and staffed transitional housing units, and partnerships with other programs. Discover how this deliberate approach to identifying and caring for patients facilitated stronger connections with partner agencies and funders.

Nashville General Hospital is transforming patient care by standardizing procedures through the health care continuum while creatively addressing the patients’ social determinants of health. The interdisciplinary Community Care Team (CCT) comprises navigators, social workers, a dietitian, and a nurse practitioner. The CCT bridges the gaps of care that occur when patients are discharged from the hospital or between clinic visits. In conjunction with the CCT, the Food Pharmacy focuses on “food as medicine” and providing access to healthy food and nutritional counseling for patients experiencing food insecurity.

Discover how University Hospital balances immediate patient care with long-term population health goals through innovative, resource-efficient interventions. This session showcases successful models, including the Georgia King Village housing initiative, that reduce emergency department utilization by targeting social determinants of health. Gain actionable insights into building adaptable care strategies, forming community partnerships, and tracking outcomes to drive measurable improvements in both individual and community health. Ideal for health care leaders, clinicians, and community health professionals, this session provides a replicable framework for enhancing health equity and sustainability in urban hospitals.

Leaders from Hennepin Healthcare, in Minneapolis, will share frameworks, best practices, and strategies to advance equity and racial justice in your organizations. Explore structural racism, health disparities, and effective approaches to embedding equity in clinical and operational practices. Through case studies and collaborative learning, you’ll gain actionable steps to drive systemic change and make your institutions models of world-class equity and racial justice in health care.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents exciting opportunities and unique, pressing challenges for essential hospitals. AI’s applications have vast potential for addressing current challenges in health care, spanning clinical diagnostics and treatment, systems operations, and community health management. Leaders at essential hospitals are keenly interested in the potential benefits AI can bring to their institutions and communities and are optimistic about AI’s potential to strengthen the quality of care, enhance patient experience and outcomes, and alleviate workforce burdens. Hear leaders from two essential hospitals share their insights on the following questions and topics:

• How is AI being used today by your hospital?
• What are your organization’s goals related to AI, and what is your strategy around health care and AI?
• What are some of the challenges your hospital faces in this journey, and what do you think are the unique challenges essential hospitals face in adopting AI?
• What is your hospital’s approach to governance regarding how AI is purchased, implemented, and evaluated?
• What mechanisms does your hospital use to stay updated on innovations in AI technology, emerging research, policy, regulations, and legislation, at both the federal and state levels?
• Looking back on your experience thus far, what lessons would you share with your fellow essential hospitals on what went well and what you would do differently?

Behavioral health needs continue to grow, with disproportionate impact on highly burdened emergency departments. Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) is an evidence-based approach to improving behavioral health care, through utilization of a safe, therapeutic setting and rapid access to intervention. Implementation at UK HealthCare has resulted in significant reduction in admissions, nearly 50 percent reduction in hospital readmissions, and 105percent improvement in outpatient kept appointment rates post EmPATH visit. Sitter reductions have also resulted in significant cost savings and improved throughput the in system emergency departments.

Explore how artificial intelligence (AI) scribing technology demonstrates significant promise in enhancing clinician efficiency, patient-centered care, and equity in essential hospitals. Gain insights from a real-world case study at University Hospital at SUNY Downstate, in Brooklyn, N.Y., where nearly 88 percent of physicians who tried AI scribing reported improvements in efficiency, usability, and workflow. Discover tips for replicability and sustainability across similar institutions serving underserved populations based on research and data from this study.

When the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed hospitals with bed shortages and care delays, University Health, in San Antonio, faced an urgent need to expand care capacity. In June 2021, the level I trauma center and only safety net hospital in South Texas introduced a critical solution by adopting the emerging Hospital at Home (HaH) model, providing care outside traditional settings. By December 2024, HaH had cared for more than 2,690 patients, with an average daily census up to 24, saving more than 14,100 hospital beds. The results were comparable to or better than traditional care—improving  access, bridging the digital divide, and advancing health equity.

The current environment, existing pharmacy software, and suite of tools make 340B program compliance complicated for essential hospitals. These hospitals, also known as covered entities, employ a wide range of third-party administrators (TPAs) to manage 340B programming functions. BMC uses three separate systems for prescription ordering, dispensing, and determining 340B eligibility, which is not uncommon for essential hospitals. After noticing data issues arising from the use of disparate systems, BMC built a solution—an adjunct tool that works between disparate data sources to identify and correct data issues leading to traditional TPA errors. In the year since implementation, the solution has led to several benefits, including recovering savings from previously misidentified qualifying claims and instituting a patient appointment list to identify qualified patients accurately. Discover how this tool has created a path for more focused and efficient internal audits by compliance teams and improved cost control measures.

In today’s evolving healthcare landscape, managing financial and operational risks is critical for long-term success. This session will discuss diversifying revenue stream options through risk assumption and containment in order to help healthcare organizations mitigate financial exposure while ensuring high-quality care delivery. We will review how medical and financial Risk assessments can analyze utilization trends, cost drivers, and performance data to identify risks and implement cost-containment strategies and help providers explore risk-based payment models.

This session will review key findings from the association’s most recent Essential Data publication and detail how the report is leveraged to protect Medicaid and other important safety net funding resources at the state and federal levels.

Discover how NYC Health + Hospitals began screening for social needs for all adult inpatients across their 11 acute care hospitals in January 2024. The health system incorporated screening questions into the nursing admissions workflow, and positive responses generated automated resource lists included in the after-visit summary. To support quality monitoring, the health system developed a tableau dashboard to track screening rates, positive responses, and opt-outs, with a sociodemographics tab to assess disparities across demographic groups. As of September 2024, the health system screened 86.9 percent of adult inpatients and identified at least one positive need for 13.4 percent.