“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” — Margaret J. Wheatley
With another program year behind us, the MHA Annual Meeting served as a powerful reminder of our shared mission to advance the health and well-being of Michigan’s patients and communities. Despite an evolving political landscape, we’ve made meaningful progress and are moving ahead with clear purpose.
As you can imagine, the 2024-2025 MHA program year was marked by busy periods of state legislative activity and various developments at the federal level. We can attribute a tremendous amount of our success to Dr. Julie Yaroch, president of ProMedica Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital, who served as board chair. Dr. Yaroch’s leadership, clinical expertise and passion for public health had significant impact across countless areas of work.
It’ll come as no surprise that ensuring access to quality healthcare for all Michiganders continued – and continues – to be a priority. This program year, the MHA successfully prevented proposed government mandated nurse staffing ratio legislation from receiving a committee vote. Advocacy efforts also continued around 340B to maintain access to community-based care and prevent drug manufacturer overreach. This resulted in strong bipartisan support for legislation that passed the Michigan Senate and collaboration at the federal level with Senator Debbie Stabenow on the SUSTAIN 340B Act.
I’d be remiss not to mention our response to proposed federal cuts to Medicaid. The MHA, alongside urban and rural members, has prioritized congressional meetings, grassroots communications, coalition efforts and collaboration with state executive leadership to send a strong, clear message: Michigan needs Medicaid.
All that said, playing defense didn’t define our program year. In an effort to grow and develop our healthcare workforce, the MHA successfully hosted the inaugural Healthcare Careers Conversation and led changes to the Michigan Reconnect Program. This resulted in 4,300 students enrolling in short-term healthcare programs, a complement to our ongoing MI Hospital Careers campaign work. Additionally, we pursued state legislation to address provider credentialing delays, secured key amendments to the Earned Sick Time Act and had a hand in proposed changes to the state’s unemployment compensation benefits, among many other employer-related policies.
I’m also incredibly proud to share that we worked with state legislators to design, draft and introduce legislation that makes assaulting a healthcare worker a felony, while tying it to appropriate criminal justice system diversions. Our MHA Keystone Center collaborated to offer active shooter trainings and workplace violence gap analyses to our members while serving as a founding partner of Lawrence Technological University’s Healthcare Violence Reduction Center (HVAC).
We were fortunate to see several MHA priorities included within the FY 2024 state budget, notably a large sum put toward mental and behavioral health. The MHA team successfully secured $8.3 million to launch a competitive grant program for hospital-based peer recovery coach (PRC) programs while leading the charge on a series of impactful prevention and data-driven efforts. Understanding that gaps in behavioral health continue to effect urban and rural hospitals alike, these successes lay the groundwork for what’s ahead.
Emerging technologies and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) reinforced our commitment to addressing cybercrime and strengthening cybersecurity policy. With this in mind, the MHA worked directly with the Michigan Attorney General and state policy leaders to ensure hospitals are reflected as victims of cybersecurity events. Simultaneously, we engaged our MHA Service Corporation, MHA AI Task Force, CFO Council and industry experts to deploy a series of cybersecurity events and resources to members.
I’d like to applaud our teams for handling a handful of unforeseen challenges, including working over the course of many months to address critical supply chain needs following the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene. We also saw impressive engagement across annual member events, from our MHA Human Resources Conference and MHA Keystone Safety & Quality Symposium to the Healthcare Leadership Academy and Excellence in Governance Fellowship.
These milestones are just a glimpse into what we accomplished together this program year. I’m deeply grateful to our MHA Board of Trustees, members, sponsors, business partners and dedicated MHA staff – your unity and unwavering dedication to this work continues to have a lasting impact.
As always, I welcome your thoughts.