America’s Essential Hospitals honors six Gage Award winners

America’s Essential Hospitals named six hospitals and health systems as 2026 Gage Award winners at its annual meeting in Minneapolis. The programs spotlight improvements in quality, population health and operations, with measurable gains in areas ranging from maternal care and mental health to rural access and patient flow.

Why it matters: - The 2026 Gage Awards spotlight hospital programs that are changing care delivery in measurable ways. - The winners show how essential hospitals are addressing maternal health, behavioral health, rural access, housing, food insecurity and emergency department congestion. - The association says the goal is to spread workable models so more communities can benefit.

What happened: - America’s Essential Hospitals recognized six member hospitals for work in health care quality, population health and operational excellence. - The awards were announced at VITAL2026, the association’s annual meeting in Minneapolis. - Jennifer DeCubellis, president and CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals, said the awards honor mission-driven problem-solving and help spread what works. - Denver Health in Denver won the Award for Quality Improvement. - Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis received a Quality Improvement Honorable Mention. - SBH Health System in the Bronx won the Award for Population Health. - TMC Health in Tucson, Ariz., received a Population Health Honorable Mention. - UK HealthCare in Lexington, Ky., won the Award for Operational Excellence. - NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue in New York received an Operational Excellence Honorable Mention.

The details: - Denver Health’s OB Perinatal Addiction Recovery program integrates substance use disorder screening, treatment and care coordination into routine prenatal and postpartum care to reduce maternal morbidity. - From May 2024 to August 2025, the Denver program identified 136 at-risk patients through harm reduction efforts and distributed 174 naloxone kits. - Standardized workflows at Denver Health connected 97% of patients who screened positive for substance use disorder to care. - Hennepin Healthcare’s Resident Integrated Support Environment was created to lower suicide and untreated illness among physician trainees. - RISE offers integrated primary care, psychiatric and psychological services, and financial counseling. - SBH Health System’s SBH Health and Wellness Center addresses income inequality, housing instability, food insecurity, neighborhood safety and limited safe spaces for exercise. - The Bronx center includes 314 affordable housing units, including 94 for high Medicaid users and people who have experienced homelessness. - The center also includes a medically based fitness center, a rooftop farm and other amenities designed to shift care upstream. - Since implementation, all 314 affordable housing units are occupied. - Gym membership at the Bronx center grew from zero to 1,023 members. - Monthly food pantry distribution doubled, and patient satisfaction increased. - TMC Health’s Hearts Close to Home program expands access to cardiac rehabilitation in rural communities. - The program uses telehealth infrastructure for real-time clinical oversight by cardiac rehabilitation specialists, supported by in-person nursing at local sites. - UK HealthCare’s EmPATH program is a 24/7 psychiatric emergency observation unit designed to replace emergency department boarding for people in behavioral health crisis. - The EmPATH model includes embedded social work, on-site community mental health services and transportation, plus a co-located long-acting injectable clinic. - In the first year of the EmPATH program, inpatient psychiatric admissions declined by 63.5%. - Thirty-day readmissions to the state psychiatric hospital decreased by 13%. - Emergency department boarding time dropped by 92.1%. - NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue’s Inpatient Lean Team is a hospitalwide operational improvement initiative focused on patient flow and inpatient capacity. - The Bellevue effort aims to reclaim unusable inpatient beds, speed discharges and room turnover, prioritize interfacility transfers and support real-time problem solving across teams.

Between the lines: - The winning programs share a common theme: care redesign works best when hospitals target a specific barrier and measure results. - Several honorees are addressing needs that sit outside traditional bedside care, including housing, food access, transportation and workforce well-being. - The strongest results came from programs that connected services across settings instead of relying on a single intervention.

What’s next: - America’s Essential Hospitals said readers can learn more in the 2026 Gage Awards report, video profiles on YouTube and the association podcast, The Safety Net Pulse. - The recognition may help speed adoption of similar programs at other essential hospitals. - The association is likely to keep using the awards to showcase models that can be adapted across communities.

The bottom line: - The 2026 Gage Awards frame essential hospitals as test beds for practical, measurable solutions to some of health care’s toughest access and quality problems.