The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) helps with career development, enhancing the profession and ultimately equipping our affiliates to improve healthcare delivery. We are achieving this in many ways through ACHE’s strategic plan to advance each of our five goals: membership, knowledge, career advancement, leadership excellence and resources.

Healthcare constantly makes advancements in patient care, and at ACHE we, too, strive to do the same thing for our affiliates by giving you the resources you need to maintain the quality of your professional skills.

During the past year executives were on the front lines when it came to issues such as patient safety, serving the uninsured, physician relations, transparency, financial resources, growth strategies, information technology and, as always, enhancing quality at all levels within their organizations.

As the foremost professional society for healthcare executives, ACHE focuses on providing you with the tools you need to advance your leadership abilities, your career goals, your knowledge of the healthcare field and your chance to meet and collaborate with your peers. And our successful efforts mean affiliates are making great strides in the advancement of the healthcare management field, which translates into better results both personally and professionally.

Growing to Service the Profession
At ACHE, we encourage affiliates to collaborate and share their ideas to make the healthcare management field strong and effective—and as more individuals join ACHE each year, the networking prospects increase, too. In 2006, we welcomed 4,258 Members and advanced an additional 2,889 Members to Fellow, helping to increase the number of affiliates by 25 percent during the last five years. The number of affiliates, as of January 1, 2007, is the highest in ACHE’s history, with the proportion of women and minority affiliates continuing to trend upward. Helping to increase our membership is the Leader-to-Leader Program. Through that program, affiliates helped recruit or advance 1,489 individuals, with 1,197 affiliates serving as sponsors. The number of international affiliates increased 4 percent, and we continue to support them with 11 international liaisons and four international healthcare executive groups.

Our commitment to serve our affiliates is unwavering, and a key aspect of that service is our credentialing process. In November 2006, following an extensive two-year evaluation process from the Credentialing Task Force, the ACHE Board of Governors changed the credentialing system to advance the standards in the field and allow healthcare executives to demonstrate they have the knowledge and skills needed to lead today’s complex healthcare organizations. The new FACHE® credentialing system became effective January 1, 2007. In addition, the Board of Governors endorsed the establishment of a recognition program, to be launched this year, and will recognize voluntary activities by affiliates that further the healthcare profession.

More than three years ago, ACHE undertook the task of forming local chapters to serve our members even more effectively. Today, we have made great advancements in implementing a chapter structure that includes 83 independent chapters, covering an area that includes more than 99 percent of ACHE’s U.S.-based affiliates and 100 percent of ACHE’s military affiliates overseas. These chapters delivered 454 education and networking events with a total attendance of 20,362 that provided 68,815 education and networking attendee hours.

ACHE not only provides a wealth of programs and opportunities for professional growth among its affiliates, but it does so for future healthcare leaders as well. To strengthen the relationship between ACHE and university-based healthcare management programs, we introduced the ACHE Higher Education Network in August 2006. Participation in the network entitles health administration programs to a variety of resources that enhance networking opportunities for students and provides access to continuing education and information about current healthcare management issues. The network quickly has grown to include more than 100 universities and colleges.

Expanding Knowledge Opportunities
Because healthcare changes constantly, it is important for executives to stay on top of the latest trends and developments. Executives continue to do this by demonstrating their participation in ACHE’s many educational programs. In 2006, we offered six new seminars and programs, including the inaugural offering of the Board of Governors Examination Review Course.

To provide ACHE chapters with the opportunity to offer Category I (ACHE education) credits, we developed five new panel discussion templates and an ethics video. There are now 17 templates that chapters can choose from, including two with video components.

On the publication side, Health Administration Press set another sales record with nearly 57,000 books in 2006, an increase of 3,000 from 2005. In all, 16 books, 10 journal issues, four new or revised self-study courses and 881 self-study courses sold (another record) were published. Our affiliates and other subscribers continue to show their support for the Journal of Healthcare Management and Frontiers of Health Services Management, both of which are available online to subscribers at ache.org.

For the third year in a row, ACHE’s bimonthly magazine, Healthcare Executive, was ranked by executives as the “most useful to their job,” ahead of the five leading publications in the field, according to the 2006 Affiliate Needs Survey. Articles in each issue are posted online.

ACHE worked to raise awareness among trustees about the importance of board certification. To that end we educate trustees by promoting that ACHE affiliates can be distinguished through the FACHE credential, ethical conduct, commitment to lifelong learning and leadership and management excellence. Advertisements in Trustee magazine serve to reinforce this message. We also exchange information with the Center for Healthcare Governance and The Governance Institute through columns in each of their publications and also publish their columns in Healthcare Executive.

Studies, surveys and reports are ways for affiliates to advance their knowledge of the healthcare field, such as “The Prevalence and Impact of Disability Among Healthcare Executives” and the “Top Issues Confronting Hospitals.” One contribution of note was the completion of the fourth report in a series of research surveys designed to compare the career accomplishments of men and women healthcare executives. Once again, we partnered to produce Futurescan, an annual guide to healthcare trends. These surveys are the basis for contact between ACHE and other healthcare publications including Modern Healthcare and Hospitals and Health Networks.

ACHE offers many resources for our affiliates to help guide them in their mission to be the type of leaders others want to look up to. Knowing how to make ethical decisions is one important part of leadership. ACHE introduced a new policy statement, “Promise-Making, Keeping and Rescinding,” which is designed to help executives formulate their approach to decision making when making a promise to a person or a group of people. We also continue to offer our annual ethics seminar, bimonthly ethics column in Healthcare Executive and an ethics toolkit on ache.org.

Supporting Career Advancement and Mentoring
As your professional society, it is our objective to deliver a range of career services. As such, our Healthcare Executive Career Resource Center served more than 1,400 affiliates and conducted numerous workshops and resume reviews.

ACHE continues to move forward with the career resources it provides to our affiliates on our Web site at ache.org. ACHE matches mentors with protégés through the Leadership Mentoring Program. To assist in building an effective mentoring partnership, ACHE unveiled on ache.org the Mentoring Partnership Lifecycle Blueprint, which, through a phased approach, assists executives in building an effective mentoring partnership. We also assist affiliates in career transitions through the Career Management Network. The ACHE online employment site averaged almost 1,000 positions in the Job Bank, growing 21 percent; and more than 3,600 resumes in the Resume Bank, a 23 percent increase.

We also are making progress educating executive search firm consultants on the significance of the ACHE credential, with 52 indicating their support. Advertisements featuring the firms appear in Modern Healthcare and Healthcare Executive. And last fall, the annual Executive Search Firm Day, featuring a panel of affiliates who discussed continuing education for senior executives, again was a great success.

To help cultivate future generations of healthcare leaders, ACHE offers an Internet resource guide through HealthManagement Careers.org, a Web site providing students information about entering the field. The site, which was accessed more than 70,000 times in 2006, an increase of 22,000 from 2005, is a wonderful place for high school and college students to begin researching healthcare management careers.

In addition, elected leaders, affiliates and others wishing to make presentations about heath management as a career may access PowerPoint presentations from the Web site as well as a new video. ACHE also promotes HealthManagementCareers.org and sent postcards to 10,000 career counselors in 2006.

Advancing Leadership Excellence
Innovation comes through collaboration. In 2006, we collaborated with the following organizations:
• The Advisory Board Company
• American College of Physician Executives
• American Hospital Association
• American Organization of Nurse Executives
• American Society for Quality
• Association of University Programs in Health Administration
• Canadian College of Health Service Executives
• Center for Healthcare Governance
• Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education
• The Governance Institute
• Healthcare Financial Management Association
• Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
• Institute for Diversity in Healthcare Management
• The Joint Commission
• Medical Group Management Association
• National Association of Health Services Executives
• National Forum of Latino Healthcare Executives
• National Patient Safety Foundation

We also are pleased with our expanded partnership with the Institute for Health Improvement and its 5 Million Lives Campaign to improve patient safety. In addition, we continue to support the “Cover the Uninsured” campaign and promote organ donation.

Diversity is always foremost in our minds at ACHE, and we will continue to assist the Institute for Diversity in Health Management (IFD) in its major educational offerings and recruitment efforts. The IFD is committed to expanding healthcare leadership opportunities for racially and ethnically diverse individuals in addition to increasing the number of minority individuals entering and advancing in the field. We also periodically meet with the leaders of the National Association of Health Services Executives and the National Forum of Latino Healthcare Executives.

The Corporate Partnerships Program continues to be successful, obtaining substantial corporate support in 2007. And the Fund for Innovation in Healthcare Excellence, a new philanthropic initiative introduced at Congress in 2006, will continue its work on advancing innovation and excellence in healthcare. The Fund plans to host its first program, the Industry Incubator, in fall 2007. The program will focus on the critical issue of supply chain management by exploring strategies and approaches from other industries and translating those lessons to healthcare.

Looking Ahead
We worked hard to ensure our programs, products and services met your individual and organizational goals during the last year. We look forward to continuing to serve you in this upcoming year and help advance the profession, your career and healthcare delivery.

Alyson Pitman Giles, FACHE Chairman-Elect President/CEO Catholic Medical Center Manchester, NH		William C. Schoenhard, FACHE Chairman Executive Vice President/COO SSM Health Care St. Louis, MO
BG David A. Rubenstein, FACHE Chairman-Elect Heidelberg, Germany		Thomas C. Dolan, PhD, FACHE, CAE President and Chief Executive Officer American College of Healthcare Executives Chicago, Illinois