It’s hard to believe we are most of the way through this year! We are on target with meeting and even exceeding our targets with many of our initiatives. We recently completed our Strategic plan and will be working to begin implementing it through the work of committees and task forces in the coming year. We will celebrate our newest Fellow and new Certificants, as well as our diversity as an organization at our annual luncheon later this month. However, as we look back at Q3, let’s acknowledge the following wins:
• The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) has agreed to publish the first of what we hope will be a series of blog posts written by ACHA on their website and promote them in their publications. The initial article will cover acoustics in healthcare settings. The articles will be attributed to ACHA and be written by groups of individuals to promote the expertise of our organization.
• ACHE was so intrigued by our Future of Healthcare Task Force report that they invited us to do a presentation on a portion of it at their Annual Congress in March. We hope to have this be the first of sessions we present and group them as an Executive Series by ACHA.
• ASHE has formed a joint Task Force with us to write the third edition of our Introduction to Health Care Planning, Design and Construction handbook. This will be the second book in our new nine-book Health Care Facilities Management Handbook Series. Six Certificants will join ASHE and Joint Commission volunteers to complete this effort and will be reviewing chapters based on areas of expertise.
• We had a great introductory call with Dr. Michael D. Brennan, Ph.D., AIA, NCARB the Executive Director, Construction and Facilities Management for the VA. Dr. Brennan is very interested in engaging more clinicians in the design process, getting more of his architectural staff ACHA certified. He’s also interested in incorporating more elements of Lean, Evidence Based Design and Wellness into projects. We will be discussing implementation in future meetings.
• The Masters Series 2.0 has officially launched our first session, Shifting to Comprehensive Care is available for viewing here. Session two, Healthcare’s Response to Health will record in October. The intent is to feature three certificants who specialize in a healthcare area of focus as panelists. Unlike our previous version of the Masters Series which was about providing high level education to our Certificants, 2.0 is outward focused and positions our certificants as the experts.
• A record number of people took and passed the exam this year. Because we are piloting the option to submit the portfolio after testing, we do not yet know the total number of certificants we will gain in 2021, but we anticipate this to be a slightly higher number than last year.
• The Communications Committee has continued to profile certificants so that you can get to know one another better. Please reach out to those profiled to introduce yourself or share a common interest. We also have been regularly sharing accomplishments on our LinkedIn Group and Twitter. Connect with ACHA and join in the discussions!
• The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice (EDI+SJ) task force completed work and the Board approved its recommendations in August. These recommendations will be used as we evaluate award criteria, committee work and initiatives. You can download a copy of the report here.
• Our Third Town hall took place in August. We hope you are enjoying these quarterly virtual news and networking sessions and plan to continue them in 2022.
I would also welcome your feedback on ACHA certification and being a healthcare architect. Please fill out this quick two question poll to share your thoughts.
I hope to see many of you in person in Cleveland. For those who aren’t able to make the trip, look for recorded segments to be available on our website. I also hope that if you are not already involved in committee or task force work that you will consider volunteering next year. We are doing meaningful work that is having an impact and welcome your contribution. As you can see from this letter, we are up to great things as an organization and would love to have you be part of what makes them happen.
