The call for content is officially closed.

Visit the conference webpage  for registration and agenda information!

As part of the American Hospital Association, ACHI and IFDHE are bringing together hospitals, health systems, public health, and community organizations to share considerable expertise, tested tools and resources, and success stories to help the field improve health and well-being for all people.Systemic inequities, such as structural racism and economic disadvantages within diverse communities,continue to contribute to unequal and negative impacts on some individuals’ access toeducation, safe and affordable housing, transportation, nutritious food access and overall health.

Now is the time to evaluate how far we have come in closing gaps in health care inequities, assess where we are on the equity journey and take what we’ve learned to strengthen our organizations and communities through collaborative and innovative work – investing in our neighborhoods and one another. Now is the time to move forward on the journey to improve population health and advance health equity, diversity and inclusion. Now is the time to build and sustain healthy and equitable communities for all. 

Join us in Cleveland on May 10-12, 2022, for ACCELERATING HEALTH EQUITY: FORWARD ON THE JOURNEY and be part of the conversation and collaboration to continue developing better and more equitable solutions to address barriers that prevent access to high quality care and improved health outcomes.

CONTENT AREAS

The AHA Accelerating Health Equity Conference welcomes proposals that feature leading-edge tactics and experts in the field for the conference’s sessions, particularly in the content areas listed below.  

Building Authentic and Sustained Community Engagement and Partnership 

Partnerships among hospitals and health systems, public health organizations, community service organizations, businesses and community members have long addressed initiatives to improve community health and ultimately accelerate health equity. Co-designing community strategies is an important activity to create equitable interventions with communities and strong partnerships are a key ingredient to integrating community voice. Moving the needle on health equity requires cross-sector alignment to address societal factors and shared strategic vision, coordination of data and resources, and meaningful and consistent engagement of community members at all stages. Content submissions in this area should discuss innovative, replicable cross-sector partnership models and/or community engagement strategies that create avenues to co-design strategies to address the societal factors that influence health and make improvements upstream.  

Managing Patient Care and Social Needs in an Equitable and Inclusive Manner 

Hospitals and health systems also work in and with communities to improve the health outcomes of their patient populations—both medical and social needs. To do so equitably requires practicing cultural humility and supporting activities that improve culturally appropriate, person-centered care in partnership with communities, public health, and social care providers. Content submissions in this area should discuss innovative, replicable tactics to better understand and meet the medical and social needs of individuals, including more direct engagement of the community’s and individual’s priorities for health.  

Establishing Systematic and Shared Accountability and Building Diverse Leadership and Governance 

As health systems and community organizations evolve their approach to health equity, diversity and inclusion, systematic and shared accountability with diverse leadership and governance is vital to sustaining the work. Infrastructure that supports shared accountability can include creating councils, designating equity champions, and including employees/patients/communities in strategy and priority setting and establishment of key performance indicators. Meanwhile diversifying leadership ranks requires taking intentional approaches to represent the populations and communities served. Content submissions in this area should discuss innovative, replicable tactics to integrate community input and priorities in equity strategies and priorities; and mechanisms to foster organizational leadership that is reflective of the communities served.  

Creating Equitable and Inclusive Workplaces 

There are many paths to moving toward equitable, inclusive organizations rooted in vibrant communities. These paths can include investing in the assets and potential of communities as well as fostering the worth and dignity of employees who work to advance an organization’s mission, vision and values. As major employers and significant economic engines in their communities, hospitals and health systems can leverage their assets and work in partnership with others to improve employees’ and residents’ health and well-being. Hospitals and health systems are also linking workforce development and other anchor mission strategies to support building diverse pipelines. Content submissions in this area should discuss innovative, replicable tactics to create equitable and inclusive workplaces through HR policies, workforce development efforts, and more.  

Other Emerging Topics 

Accelerating health equity touches upon myriad topics and corresponding challenges. Communities are working together to address the differential impact of climate change, consider the unique needs of immigrant populations and focus on reducing and preventing acts of violence. Innovative models to develop and test new measures of health and outcomes at the community and population levels (including return on investment) are a key focus for understanding success. Choose this content area if your innovative idea, project or collaboration is relevant to the conference theme but does not fall into one of the above, specified content areas. 

PRESENTATION FORMATS

Breakout sessions and poster presentations are the primary formats for sharing content at this conference, as described below. However, conference organizers reserve the right to ask that your proposal be combined with another relevant submission and/or shared through another, more applicable format not listed below.   

Breakout Sessions 
Concurrent breakout sessions provide an opportunity to share successful strategies with a broad audience. Each session will last up to 60 minutes with at least 15 minutes reserved for attendee interaction.  We anticipate that sessions will be organized by common topics and, therefore, may include more than one organization participating in a panel-style presentation or discussion.  

The AHA is committed to highlighting content of the highest caliber that builds the knowledge of conference attendees and fosters peer learning. We are seeking experienced presenters to convey their knowledge, demonstrate actionable tools and engage conference participants in discussion. Successful proposals will:  

  • Address practice needs of attendees from diverse professional backgrounds and organizations  
  • Highlight key takeaways and how-tos for advancing health and health equity  
  • Focus on replicable models  
  • Demonstrate value and measurable impact   
  • Encourage engagement and interaction from participants    

Poster Presentations 
We are seeking original content about your organization’s community and population health improvement and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Posters may present case studies unique to your community or organization or novel tools for health improvement.  

PLEASE NOTE: Given social distancing guidelines and possible limitations of the hotel space, we continue to evaluate the best format for presenting posters during the conference. If an in-person networking session is deemed appropriate, the lead presenter is expected to attend the conference and engage attendees about their poster during the assigned time. However, conference organizers may decide that the poster presentation is better suited as a virtual component of conference. 

SELECTION CRITERIA

Submitted proposals will be evaluated by a panel of experts according to criteria that include:  

  • Demonstrated Impact. Highlights the collection and use of data to drive action and measure results. Shows the outcomes or impact on advancing health equity, both successes and failures.   
  • Collaborative. Integrates the patient and community voice and showcases effectiveness of working with different organizations to reach a common goal.   
  • Application to Practice/Transferable. Showcases models and tools that can be adapted and presented to audiences' own hospital, organization or community setting. Focus on the “how” vs. “why”.   
  • Innovative. Extent to which the program or initiative displays innovation or originality.  
  • Sustainable and Scalable. Highlights sustainable and measurable practices that can be scaled beyond a small pilot.  
  • Relevance. Extent to which the proposal addresses the conference theme and selected content area.  
  • Clarity. Extent to which the proposal offers a clear description of the proposed session and practice-oriented learning objectives.  

PLEASE NOTE: To preserve the integrity of the conference experience, AHA has a policy of not selling services, products or future consulting assignments during presentations. All accepted breakout session presenters will be asked to sign a faculty agreement that includes this policy.    

SUBMISSION PROCESS & TIMELINE

EXTENDED! All submissions must be completed by October 10, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. CT.

  • You may create and submit multiple submissions. 
  • Submissions will not be considered if sent outside of this electronic submission center.
  • Materials submitted must be original, with all external sources referenced. 
  • We will allow up to four speakers per session. 
    • You MUST notify anyone you list as a co-speaker about their involvement in this submission!
  • You will receive an automatic email confirmating receipt of your submission. 
  • A team of volunteers and staff will review all complete submissions. 

Notification  

All submissions will be evaluated by AHA, and presenters will be notified of their acceptance status by early December. If selected, your name, biography, presentation title and session details will be made available on the Accelerating Health Equity Conference website and conference mobile app by March 2022. Conference attendees will receive your presentation via the mobile app. AHA or ACHI membership is not required in order to be a presenter.   

We anticipate receiving more high-quality proposals than we can include in the conference agenda. We may contact you about featuring the proposed content through another component of the conference.   

Conference Fees

Presenters are responsible for their own travel and accommodation expenses but are invited to register for the conference at the special reduced rate of $525. Confirmed presenters will receive a discount code at the time of registration. 

Presenter Timeline

PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS DUE

All proposals must be submitted electronically.  

Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. CT

NOTIFICATIONS SENT 

AHA will notify all applicants of their application status via email.  

Early December 2021

FACULTY AGREEMENT DUE 

All presenters of accepted sessions will be required to fill out the faculty agreement form to confirm participation in the conference.  

January 7th, 2021

SESSION DETAILS CONFIRMED

The conference agenda is scheduled to go live in March 2022 so one presenter will need to approve and finalize session details (title, description, speaker names, etc.) within the CVENT platform. While changes can be made after this date due to emergency speaker changes or additions, they will be live to participants. 

February 24, 2022

PRESENTATION MATERIALS DUE

Presenters must submit final slides and other materials. Presentations will be available to conference attendees via the conference mobile app. Materials mentioned during the session that were not included originally can be added after the event. 

April 22, 2022

ACCELERATING HEALTH EQUITY CONFERENCE

May 10-12, 2022

Questions?

Email us as healthequity@aha.org 

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