Steve Ahnen's Blog (7)

As National Hospital Week begins, we join our colleagues from across New Hampshire and the nation in celebrating the hope, healing and health that our hospitals provide to the patients and communities they serve.

Since it was first observed in 1921, National Hospital Week has celebrated the history, the technology and the dedicated professionals that make our facilities such beacons of confidence and care. This year’s theme – “A Guiding Light for Changing Times” – is a reminder that…

On behalf of hospital and health care leaders, the New Hampshire Hospital Association salutes the incredibly talented, dedicated and compassionate nurses in the Granite State today and every day, but also in recognition of National Nurses Week which is being celebrated this week here and around the country.

Year in and year out, nursing is cited as the most trusted profession in America, which helps to make nurses an essential part of the team of health care professionals in hospitals…

It’s been one week since the senseless and horrific Boston Marathon bombings.  The emotions of the week have gone from one extreme to the other, and everywhere in between.  The feelings of elation and relief of a city, a state, a region and a nation that were captured on television when news of the arrest of the second suspect broke Friday evening were palpable.  Although a safe distance away in New Hampshire, I know I slept much better knowing that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in…

The Foundation for Healthy Communities, an affiliate of the New Hampshire Hospital Association, recently released the New Hampshire Community Needs & Community Benefits Report entitled “Hospitals Take the Lead.”  This important report demonstrates the tremendous economic and social benefits that hospitals provide to the patients and communities who depend on them. 

The report summarizes the most recent community health needs assessment information reported by hospitals in New…

State Rep. Marilinda Garcia's recent column in the Concord Monitor (Opinion page, Feb. 18), "Hospital plan improves business climate" misses the mark on a number of fronts. Her legislation, House Bill 1642, would create a special exemption from laws to which all other hospitals in New Hampshire must adhere. How does giving preferential treatment to some at the expense of others improve the business climate for all hospitals in New Hampshire?

The state budget that was adopted last June…

The fundamental promise of Medicaid is that it is a partnership between the state and federal government to take care of the neediest in our society.  But the budget that is about to be adopted by the Legislature turns that promise on its head and is a betrayal of the commitment the State of New Hampshire has made to the people we serve in the Medicaid…

Senators will be voting on a state budget proposal today that its proponents will claim has been balanced without increasing taxes in the Granite State.  But for hospitals, that claim just doesn’t add up; it’s a massive tax increase, plain and…