Org Leadership & Governance 4

AHA.ORG | PAGE 13 OF 162025 ADVOCACY AGENDA

Resiliency and Preparedness

� Advocate for increased annual appropriations for the Hospital Preparedness Program to ensure that the health care infrastructure is ready to respond to crises. Continue efforts to ensure that most of this funding is awarded to hospitals and health systems to enhance emergency preparedness and surge capacity.

� Support federal incentives and investments to improve hospitals’ disaster preparedness and operational resiliency.

� Prevent and address shortages of critical medical drugs, devices, blood and blood products, and supplies, including working with Congress and the federal government to bring about policy changes that will avert future shortages by strengthening the medical supply chain.

� Advance policies that assist in protecting health care services, data and patients from cyberattacks while supporting efforts to deliver broader gains in computer security by shifting the burden of cybersecurity away from individual health systems.

� Continue to support federal incentives and investments to improve the security posture of hospitals and health systems, including regulatory relief for hospitals and health systems that suffer a cyberattack despite having recognized cybersecurity practices in place, and push back on any new cybersecurity regulation not inclusive of the entire health sector.

� Advocate for increased accountability of third-party technology vendors in HIPAA.

� Support regulation of arti!cial intelligence that enables continued innovation while providing reasonable guardrails to ensure patient safety and improved outcomes for all patients.

� Support clear minimum privacy standards in HIPAA that account for how data is used, shared and created in hospitals and health systems.

� Support the continued development of clinician burden reduction technologies to help caregivers reduce administrative requirements to spend more time on direct patient care.

� Advocate for the adoption of a universal patient identi!cation number to support patient safety efforts.

� Continue to support federal investments in improving broadband infrastructure, especially in rural and underserved areas of the country.