As it usually is, the early part of the year has been active with advocacy and ensuring that Upstate healthcare is fairly provided for in the FY 2025 budget. Since January, IHA has been working diligently meeting with Upstate representatives and explaining the major threats facing Upstate and rural New York healthcare, including continuing increased costs, labor challenges, changes to cost structures, and hard-to-discharge patients, just to name a few. IHA highlighted the importance of a plan to close the Medicaid gap and the need for immediate financial support to preserve care for the communities our members serve.
IHA’s newsletter features highlights and updates on our advocacy efforts, programs & initiatives, United Iroquois Shared Services (UISS) group purchasing updates, what’s happening inside IHA and a new series sharing insights from our CEOs. We hope you enjoy this edition!
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With the budget finalized, the end of the 2024 legislative session is upon us. However, in addition to substantive legislation that will become the focus of the legislature’s attention, we remain focused on the budget to ensure that the financial assistance included in the budget is equitably distributed to Upstate and rural hospitals.
This spring IHA has been busy working to bring members a wide variety of innovative and helpful special projects. We have been focusing on the start of our 2024 IHA Scholarship program, submitting applications for potential 2025 grants, and wrapping up a three year grant. We hope that these projects will bring meaningful assistance to our member hospitals and contribute to a stronger landscape for Upstate healthcare.
UISS kicked off 2024 by introducing our new streamlined Weekly Newsletter. We also introduced a new Educational scholarship program and awarded the first recipients.
We held an informational briefing for vendors to share information on the signficant impact of the Change Healthcare/Optum cybersecurity incident. We hosted our third Supply Chain Forum and kicked off a regional energy initiative.
Over the next several issues of the IHA quarterly newsletter, we will feature CEOs from each of the five Regions that make up our membership (i.e., Capital District, North Country, Mohawk Valley, Southern Tier, and Central New York).
Beginning with this newsletter, we are featuring our CEOs from the Capital District:
Dr. Jason Mouzakes - interim Hospital General Director at Albany Medical Center, chair of the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, and professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics at Albany Medical College
Dr. Dorothy M. Urschel DNP, ACNP-BC, MBA- President and Chief Executive Officer of Columbia Health
Paul Scimeca - President and Chief Executive Officer of Glens Falls Hospital
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