President’s Message

Helping One Another

There’s one thing we keep hearing, even a year into this pandemic: "We’ll get through it together."

It feels like we’re getting there, slowly but surely.

To best serve our members, the AHA strives to foster good communication and working relationships with governmental groups, including the Office of the Governor, the Arkansas Department of Health, the Arkansas Department of Human Services, and federal counterparts including those of our six congressional delegates. The COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened even these well-established working ties, and our members are the better for it.

When a hospital or its home community sends a distress call our way, it is particularly satisfying when AHA can serve as a reliable liaison for them, working with various governmental offices to resolve their challenges.

And we learn from these challenges. We look at each lesson learned as an opportunity to share solutions with our membership. We figure that if one hospital or community is experiencing struggles or frustration with a particular issue, others in our membership might be facing similar obstacles. So, we turn solutions into learning tools and spread the lessons learned throughout our membership.

Many of you encounter these – and catch the latest COVID-19 updates – through the now year-old weekly phone calls AHA instituted to strengthen pandemic communication. Whether it’s the Monday calls sharing new data and policy information, or Thursday’s calls with hospital CEOs, we offer the most up-to-date information possible to keep each of our member hospitals informed.

I have commented before on the growing cooperation between hospitals that COVID-19 is fostering. It continues to be a pleasure to see these ties grow. Yes, competition still exists, but it takes a back seat to working together for our fellow Arkansans during this crisis.

A recent example occurred during February’s devastating winter storm. As that storm brought the center of the nation to a halt, it also had a profound effect on the hospitals of Arkansas. The community of Pine Bluff suffered damage to its water system, and water pressure was negatively affected. Jefferson Regional had to postpone surgeries and procedures due to the citywide water problem, and it couldn’t accept new patients while the water system was compromised.

Jefferson Regional alerted nearby hospitals in Little Rock and south Arkansas, which stepped up to receive new patients from the Pine Bluff area.

And there are lots of other examples. Hospitals continue to share data, so that the COVID-19 response in each region of the state runs smoothly and is well-coordinated. Lately, when one hospital or system finds it has an excess of vaccine, it re-distributes these precious doses to help other communities vaccinate more Arkansans.

On one of our recent Thursday CEO Forum calls, a hospital administrator mentioned that his team was running short of vaccine quantities needed to complete second-dose appointments at an upcoming clinic. Several CEOs urged that he call them; they found and transferred the vaccine he needed, and the vaccination effort was shored up.

I’ve seen this over and over again throughout the pandemic: When one hospital has difficulties, others come to its aid.

Thanks to each of you for all you are doing. And I’d like to thank our AHA team for its monumental efforts over the past year. Yes, we’ll all get through this together. That’s a fact.

Bo Ryall

President and CEO Arkansas Hospital Association