Connections: June 2024 | Q2 Newsletter

In this issue:

Chapter Important Dates

Chapter Leadership Forum and the Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference – July 21-14 | Anaheim, Calif.
ASHE Elections – Ballot opens on July 21 and closes on August 21.

2024 Chapter Awards

The results are in! The 2024 Chapter Awards were announced during the Q2 Chapter Leader/Liaison Call and can be viewed on the ASHE Chapter Awards webpage. The ASHE Chapter Awards recognize the outstanding achievements and contributions of ASHE Chapters that partner with ASHE to help optimize the health care physical environment. ASHE offers platinum, gold, silver and bronze level awards, in addition to the elite status bonus award that can be awarded to chapters at any level.

Winning Chapters received an email with their award logo, a list of ways ASHE is recognizing awarded Chapters and instructions on how to receive their plaque. If you did not receive it and should have, please contact Jenny Hull, lead specialist, ASHE governance and Chapter relations.

2024 Chapter Challenge Winners

Congratulations to the 2024 Chapter Challenge Winners! This year, 14 Chapters across 322 facilities participated in the Chapter Challenge. The winners are:

Small Category Winner
Arkansas Association for Healthcare Engineering (AAHE)

Large Category Winner
Texas Association of Healthcare Facilities Management (TAHFM)

The Energy to Care Chapter Challenge program allows ASHE Chapters to participate in a friendly competition against one another in an effort to reduce their energy consumption. Chapters that participate in the Chapter Challenge qualify to apply for elite status during the Chapter Awards season. Learn more at ashe.org/chapter-challenge.

Join us at the Chapter Leadership Forum in Anaheim!

The 2024 Chapter Leadership Forum (CLF) will be held on Sunday, July 21, 2024, in Anaheim, Calif., from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. PT before the Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference. The CLF will feature sessions on utilizing technology and social media at the chapter level, expanding your membership pipeline, strategic planning and operating budgets, and more! Chapter leaders will have the opportunity to engage fellow leaders in important dialogue, share ideas, discover solutions to chapter challenges, gain valuable takeaways from colleagues and refine their leadership skills. This year’s Chapter Award winners will be recognized throughout the conference; plaques will be distributed to each Chapter president at check-in before the start of the forum.

CHAPTER LEADERSHIP FORUM AGENDA

7–7:30 a.m.: Check-in and breakfast
7:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.: Chapter Leadership Forum sessions
12–1 p.m.: Lunch and Learn

Don't miss out on this Chapter Leadership Forum! Register for the 2024 Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference to be held July 21-24, 2024 and be sure to add the Forum to your schedule when you register!

Regional Networking and Updates

Meet up with conference attendees from your region and hear updates from your ASHE Advisory Board regional representative regarding your region and its chapters. Regions 1, 2, 4, 5 and 9 will also hear speeches from regional representative candidates for their region. This event will be held on Sunday, July 21, from 4:30-6 p.m. PT. Updates begin at 5 p.m. Attend this event when you register for the Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference!

ASHE 2024 Chapter Service Project

Each year, the local chapter in which the Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference is located comes together to perform a service project as a way to give back and support local efforts. This year’s host chapter, the California Society for Healthcare Engineering, will feature a community service project working with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire. Their mission is to provide children facing adversity with a strong, enduring, professionally supported one-to-one mentoring relationship that creates pathways for the future and a mentor for a lifetime. Chapter leaders, conference attendees and guests will have the opportunity to donate school supplies during the conference. More information will be coming soon!

Calling All ASHE Chapters to Write to CMS

ASHE is asking all Chapters to consider drafting and sending a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services urging updates to the Conditions of Participation by adopting the 2024 editions of NFPA 101^®, Life Safety Code^®, and NFPA 99, Health Care Facilities Code. This is not a form letter writing campaign — we need chapters to identify any specific burden their members experience with the currently adopted (2012) editions of NFPA 101 and NFPA 99.

The letters should be put on chapter letterhead and addressed and emailed to the following:

Dr. Dora Hughes
Chief Medical Officer Director, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
7500 Security Boulevard, M/S S2‐12‐25
Baltimore, MD 21133
dora.hughes@cms.hhs.gov

Lisa Parker
Director, Division of Institutional Quality Standards, Clinical Standards Group
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
7500 Security Boulevard, M/S S2‐12‐25
Baltimore, MD 21133
lisa.parker@cms.hhs.gov

2024 ASHE Elections – Voting Opens July 21!

The ASHE National Nominating Committee is pleased to announce the candidates for the 2024 ASHE election. Learn about the candidates for each of the open positions by visiting ashe.org/ashe-elections.

All current ASHE members* will be eligible to cast their vote for president-elect and associate member representative.

President-Elect: The president-elect will serve a one-year term that begins January 1, 2025, and ends December 31, 2025. The president-elect will take office as ASHE president beginning January 1, 2026.
Associate Member Representative: The associate member representative will serve a two-year term that begins January 1, 2025, and ends December 31, 2026.

All current ASHE members* who reside in the following regions are also eligible to cast a vote for one Advisory Board regional representative in their region.

Regional Representatives: The Advisory Board regional representatives from regions 1, 2, 4, 5 and 9 will serve a two-year term that begins January 1, 2025, and ends December 31, 2026. The other regional representatives will be elected next year.

As in years past, voting will be done online with these simple steps:

Update your email address in your ASHE member profile by June 30.
Watch your email on Sunday, July 21, for an email from Association Elections with your unique direct link to the elections website.
Click on the link and vote!

Voting opens on Sunday, July 21, 2024, at 12:00 a.m. CT and closes on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. CT.

*Student and educator members are not eligible to vote.

Visit the ASHE Election Page regularly for more information. Questions? Contact Jenny Hull, ASHE elections secretary, at jhull@aha.org.

Use ASHE Hosted Programs to Support Member Career Development

Since 1963, ASHE has been at the forefront of applying innovations in the optimization of the health care physical environment. For more than a decade, ASHE’s hosted programs have provided Chapters the benefit of hosting ASHE-developed education programming directly to its members at the lowest per-person cost available.

ASHE Chapters and regional conferences, such as the Arkansas Association for Healthcare Engineering, Inc. (AAHE), Healthcare Engineers Society of Northern Illinois (HESNI), Indiana Society for Healthcare Engineering (ISHE), Kansas City Area Healthcare Engineers (KCAHE), New England Healthcare Engineers’ Society (NEHES), North Carolina Healthcare Engineers Association, Inc. (NCHEA), Northern Ohio Society for Healthcare Engineering (NOSHE), Oklahoma Association of Healthcare Engineers (OAHE), Texas Association of Healthcare Facilities Management (TAHFM), Virginia Society of Healthcare Engineers (VSHE), Washington State Society for Healthcare Engineering (WSSHE) and the ASHE Region 6 Conference have all leveraged ASHE hosted programs to help educate their members.

Hosted programs allow health care organizations, private companies, government and military groups, and ASHE Chapters to deliver the highest quality educational programming focused on optimizing the health care physical environment in the marketplace without having to spend money on developing their own training curriculum. Programming ASHE hosted programs that align with ASHE’s core competency frameworks and product pathways can help your Chapter’s customers, members and community to successfully progress in their career development.

Unlike other training opportunities in the marketplace, ASHE hosted programs provide:

Unbiased, holistic education on a variety of important topics that impact you daily.
Insights from trusted industry veterans with experience across the planning, design, construction and maintenance continuum.
An education product portfolio built from decades at the forefront of optimizing the health care physical environment.

Get started on bringing in-person, live online and on-demand ASHE hosted program education to your Chapter members. Learn more about how ASHE hosted programs can support your chapter members’ professional development needs.

Chapter Resources

Chapter Calendar — Your go-to source for all upcoming ASHE due dates, calls and events, as well as a space to share your Chapter’s upcoming events. If you’d like to add your event to the calendar, please submit the Chapter Calendar Request Form.
Chapter Communications and Meeting Recordings — Miss a Chapter Leader/Liaison call or can’t find an important Chapter communication? All Chapter communications, recordings and PowerPoints are saved here.
Chapter Contacts Update Form — Make sure you and your Chapter are receiving all important ASHE communications! Fill out the contact update form when your Chapter’s officers or support staff change, or if you need someone added to the communications distribution list.

ASHE Education Resources

ASHE has several resources and e-books available to members free of charge. Check out the ASHE’s top picks of the month!

Weathering the Storm: Health care facilities on the front lines of climate change response and recovery — ASHE’s new free e-book features a collection of articles describing extreme weather events that have affected health care facilities across the country — including hurricanes, flooding, drought, wildfires, extreme heat and blistering cold. Health care facilities managers share their unbiased experiences and provide valuable insight into the difficult situations they faced, detailing the expected and unexpected impact, aftermath and recovery efforts following these events.
Download this free e-book, Weathering the Storm: Health care facilities on the front lines of climate change response and recovery, today.
Emergency Management Playbook — ASHE’s new free e-book shares emergency management and infection control best practices learned during the COVID-19 pandemic that health care facilities managers, infection control practitioners, emergency managers, incident management teams and environmental services professionals can use to plan for and respond to emergency situations impacting the health care physical environment.
Download ASHE’s free e-book, Emergency Management Playbook, today.
ASHE and the AHA Team Up to Provide Behavioral Health Educational Resources — Across the country, health care providers work tirelessly to respond to the national behavioral health crisis. A 2023 report in JAMA Health Forum noted that 38% more people are in mental health care since the onset of the pandemic than before. A 2023 study in JAMA Pediatrics found 1 in 5 adolescents had major depressive disorder, but less than half of those who needed treatment received any care for the issue. In 2022, the American Hospital Association shared recommendations with congressional leaders voicing support for several initiatives to improve access to comprehensive, affordable and quality behavioral health services, as well as ways to protect youth mental health.
To help to respond to this crisis, and in collaboration with the American Hospital Association's Behavioral Health Community, ASHE will be offering complimentary access to all of its behavioral health-related conference recordings from 2024 events including the International Summit & Exhibition on Health Facility Planning, Design & Construction (PDC Summit) and Health Care Facilities Innovation Conference that are focused on the planning, design, construction and maintenance of behavioral health facilities.

You can access the recordings here to support your organization’s efforts to respond to this national emergency.