Advancing Health

Across rural Georgia, more than 60 counties lack a single pediatrician. In this conversation, Jean Sumner, M.D., Dean of Mercer University School of Medicine, and Marc Welsh, vice president of child advocacy at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, share how an innovative public-private partnership is transforming access to pediatric care and building pipelines of rural-ready physicians.

In this Advancing Health encore episode, Josh Neff, CEO of CommonSpirit Mercy Hospital, discusses a new cutting-edge communication platform that sends patient EKGs directly from the ambulance to the cardiologist in real time. Josh explains how this simple, affordable tool is cutting treatment times and saving lives in one of the nation’s most challenging regions for emergency cardiac care.

Preventing workplace violence in health care takes more than security. In this conversation, Thomas Ahr, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Hospital Sisters Health System, details how the health system is prioritizing prevention, supporting staff after incidents, and turning safety into a leadership responsibility.

In part two of this conversation, John Riggi, the AHA’s national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, talks with the FBI's Brett Leatherman, assistant director, Cyber Division, and Gretchen Burrier, assistant director, Office of Private Sector, about how nation-state actors are leveraging cybercriminals and AI to disrupt health care. They also discuss how hospitals and health systems of any size can build trusted, local relationships with the FBI before a cyber crisis hits.

In part one of this two-part conversation, John Riggi, the AHA's national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, talks with the FBI's Brett Leatherman, assistant director, Cyber Division, and Gretchen Burrier, assistant director, Office of Private Sector, about the FBI's new campaign against cyberthreats, the surge of cyberattacks in U.S. health care, and what hospitals and health systems can do right now to defend themselves.