The MHA Board of Trustees welcomed The Joint Commission President and CEO Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD to its Feb. 3 meeting. In his guest presentation, Dr. Perlin shared The Joint Commission’s mission to work in partnership with its member organizations throughout 86 countries to improve healthcare outcomes for all patients, implement cost-reducing sustainable practices, maximize the learning and diagnostic potential of artificial intelligence and streamline standards to focus on the performance and benchmarking metrics member organizations need to be successful.
The board received a Health PAC report on the kick-off of the 2025 campaign, which provides support to identified healthcare legislative champions. The board also discussed the MHA 2024-2025 Strategic Action Plan, which sets the association’s priorities for the year and is organized into five key pillars: workforce support, protecting access, support for mental and behavioral health, creating healthy communities and strengthening cybercrime/cybersecurity policy.
The board’s action plan conversation focused on preserving Medicaid funding programs, supporting statewide community benefits priorities aimed at supporting moms and babies and improving mental and behavioral healthcare. The board also discussed the impact of recent federal activity and the ongoing advocacy strategy at the state level to protect the 340B program and amend the Earned Sick Time Act to address employer concerns and ensure patient care is not negatively impacted.
Board member, Adnan Munkarah, MD, president, Care Delivery System, Chief Clinical Officer, Henry Ford Health, provided a safety story that highlighted the importance of the partnership between home health caregivers, EMS, law enforcement and hospital mental and behavioral health resources to help a patient struggling with suicidal thoughts get the help they needed.
The board concluded with board task force reports, an MHA Keystone Center and MHA Service Corporation report, regional hospital council reports, an AHA report and an update from MHA CEO Brian Peters.
Members with questions about the actions of the MHA Board of Trustees may contact Amy Barkholz at the MHA.
