KHA 2026 Quality Conference
“The Perfect Shot for Quality: Achieving Precision and Excellence in Every Move”
March 23-24, 2026
Louisville Marriott East
The annual KHA Quality Conference convenes health care leaders for focused, evidence-based learning to advance quality, safety, and performance in an evolving healthcare environment. Sessions address accreditation readiness, infection prevention, medication safety, patient experience, workforce well-being, and the measurable return on investing in quality. Designed for Quality professionals at all levels, the conference delivers practical strategies and data-driven insights to achieve precision and excellence in every move.
Target Audience: CEO, CNO, CMO, management team, quality director, clinical leader, infection preventionist, pharmacist, front-line staff, family engagement team, community group, and other health care providers.
Hotel Accommodations
Louisville Marriott East
1903 Embassy Square Blvd, Louisville, KY 40299
(888) 236-2427
Room Rate: $164.00 + fees
- Hotel Phone Number: 888-236-2427
- Group Block Reference: KHA Quality Conference
- Room Block Closes: February 25, 2026
Continuing Education
The Kentucky Hospital Association is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the Kentucky Board of Nursing (KBN). KBN approval of a continuing nursing education provider does not constitute endorsement of program content. This educational conference is approved to offer contact hours listed:
- March 23 – Contact Hours:5.7– Offering #5-0023-12-27-05, Expiration 12-31-27
- March 24 – Contact Hours: 3.3 – Offering #5-0023-12-27-06 ,Expiration 12-31-27
To receive credit, participants must attend the full conference day for which they are requesting credit hours, provide their nursing license number, sign the attendance roster, and complete the offering evaluation, which will be available at the conclusion of each conference day. No partial credit may be given. Failure to complete any step in the process outlined above will result in non-issuance of CEU credit in accordance with KBN guidelines.
Fees and Registration
KHA Member – Full Conference: $250
KHA Non-Member – Full Conference: $400
KHA Member – Single Day: $150
KHA Non-Member – Single Day: $250
Registration fee includes sessions and meals. Online registration closes Tuesday, March 17, 2026. On-site registration will be available on Monday, March 23, 2026.
No refunds will be given after Monday, March 9, 2026.
For More Information
Casey Franklin, Associate Vice President, Quality & Health Professions
cfranklin@kyha.com
(270)579-2974
Kris Allen, Events Manager
kallen@kyha.com
(502)992-4361
Lauren Wheatley, Director of Education & Events
lwheatley@kyha.com
(502)992-4370
Agenda
Monday, March 23
8:00 – 8:45 a.m. (ET)
Breakfast and Registration
8:45 – 9:00 a.m.
Welcome
Melanie Landrum
Senior Vice President of Data, Operations, and Innovation
Kentucky Hospital Association
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Keynote: Leading Quality & Accreditation – Succeeding in the New Paradigm
Rick Curtis
CEO
Center of Improvement in Healthcare Quality (CIHQ)
Expectations by CMS and accrediting agencies that hospitals improve and sustain performance have never been greater! The need for effective leadership in quality and safety is paramount to a hospital’s success. This presentation will provide quality leaders with an understanding of the new accreditation paradigm and provide concrete, real-world strategies to meet the challenge that lies ahead.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the key issues currently being seen in accreditation surveys that Quality Leaders may directly influence.
- List realistic ways in which Quality Leaders can support a state of Continual Survey Readiness (CSR) in their health care organizations.
- Name ways in which Quality Leaders can empower their front-line teams to drive success in earning positive survey results.
10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Rebecca Battjes
Infection Prevention Senior Clinical Advisor, North America
Diversey
This session will explore preliminary results of a multiregional, multicenter observational study, wherein trained observers performed hundreds of EVS direct practice observations in discharge and daily cleaning. This session will use interactive polling to assess the audience’s expectations, and then provide data from observations and published literature to find facts and bust common myths!
Learning Objectives:
- Summarize key successes and challenges identified during hundreds of recent daily and discharge room direct cleaning observations in patient care areas.
- Describe the evolution of peer-reviewed literature related to occupied patient room and discharge cleaning compliance.
- Explain how different cleaning activities are performed during patient area cleaning, the impact on high-touch surfaces disinfection, cross contamination and pathogen transmission risk.
11:00 – 11:15 a.m.
Break
11:15 – 12:00 p.m.
Claire Lauzon-Vallone
Vice President of Quality and Safety
CHRISTUS Health
Tanya Dililio
Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer
National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ)
This session will unveil findings from a NAHQ National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) report that, for the first time, quantifies the financial return on investing in quality and patient safety across healthcare systems – what’s been coined ROI-Q. This groundbreaking report proves what we’ve long believed: investing in the healthcare workforce to advance quality and safety yields a measurable return. It presents timely and groundbreaking findings that provide healthcare leaders with a roadmap to implement profitable quality and safety management systems in healthcare.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand a validated, data-driven methodology that demonstrates measurable cost savings, improved healthcare outcomes, and positive return on investment (ROI) through investments in quality and patient safety.
- Examine real-world evidence from early-adopting health systems that illustrates how building workforce competencies reduces harm, improves performance, and delivers financial gains—challenging the misconception that quality improvement increases costs.
- Gain practical insights from transformational leaders on how to apply these findings within healthcare organizations, including specific clinical and financial results achieved at CHRISTUS Health, such as reductions in serious safety event rates.
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Lunch Sponsor:
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Reignite Inspire Support Empower (R.I.S.E)
Andrea Coyle, DNP, MHA, MSN, NE-BC
Chief Clinical and Innovation Officer
Overseas Nursing Excellence Consulting Group, LLC
Reignite Inspire Support Empower is an interactive presentation that intentionally creates space to reflect and connect to purpose. Signs and symptoms of burnout as well as the impact on quality is explored through guided reflection and real-life experiences. Gratitude and positive psychology are discussed as practical tools to manage burnout. Last, participants are reminded what truly anchors their approach to leadership.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand well-being as a leader and how it impacts those that are lead.
- List at least three symptoms of burnout and discover individual burnout levels.
- Explore how burnout impacts quality care.
- Explain the five building blocks of Positive Emotions Engagement Relationships Meaning Achievement.
- Develop a self-care plan by selecting two P.E.R.M.A building blocks that align with their values.
2:00 – 2:30 p.m.
2:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Craig Clapper PE
Founder and Chief Knowledge Officer
Reliability 4 Life
Culture is the strongest performance shaping factor in complex, people-based systems like healthcare. Is culture easy or difficult to change? Difficult. If culture were easy to change we would not waste your time; any results achieved this year would be gone by the next. But since culture is difficult to change, any results achieved this year will be with us for years to come. This program will roadmap the use of professional culture in achieving and sustaining quality.
Learning Objectives:
- Define high reliability and High Reliability Organizing – and describe how reliability is a critical success factor in achieving safety, quality, and efficiency.
- Explain emergence and describe how high reliability emerges from the performance shaping factors of the socio-technical system (the work system).
- Define culture – and explain the 3-step process for culture change (define expectations as target behaviors, enable performance by providing the knowledge and skills necessary, and form habits using accountability systems).
- Provide examples of effective leadership during the habit formation phase.
3:30 – 3:45 p.m.
Melanie Landrum
Senior Vice President of Data, Operations, and Innovation
Kentucky Hospital Association
3:45 – 4:30 p.m.
Quality Awards Presentation
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Reception
Reception Sponsor:
Tuesday, March 24
Team Spirit Day:
Join KHA in celebrating teamwork and spirit
by wearing your favorite team’s jersey!
8:15 – 8:50 a.m. (ET)
8:50 – 9:00 a.m.
Welcome
Casey Franklin
Associate Vice President, Quality and Health Professions
Kentucky Hospital Association
9:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Craig Clapper
Chief Executive Officer
Reliability 4 Life
System reliability is a success factor common to patient safety, clinical quality, patient experience, caregiver experience, and efficiency. High Reliability Organizing (HRO) is the most effective way to realize high reliability in a complex, people-based system like healthcare. Unfortunately, since HRO was first introduced into healthcare in 2001 there has not been significant progress. What HRO in healthcare needs is a little less talk about HRO principles and a lot more action in culture transformation using HRO principles. This program will deliver the framework for that action. Starting with fundamentals of system reliability and principles of high reliability organizing, this program will roadmap a simple culture transformation process for all healthcare leaders to follow on their journey to becoming a High Reliability Organization.
Learning Objectives:
- Define high reliability and High Reliability Organizing – and describe how reliability is a critical success factor in achieving safety, quality, and efficiency.
- Explain emergence and describe how high reliability emerges from the performance shaping factors of the socio-technical system (the work system).
- Provide examples of principles of high reliability organizations, including the five (5) Weick and Sutcliffe principles of collective mindfulness.
- Explain the process for culture change using behaviors – and provide illustrative practices (the target behaviors) for HRO principles.
- Identify key elements of bundles for HRO leader skills and HRO Life Skills (skills that are universal to all caregivers, providers, and support team members).
10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Colleen McCrory
Huron
Organizations are consistently focused on “the patient experience.” Are you keeping up with the external environment and experience technologies and leveraging your existing data sources to optimize the overall experience? Sometimes it’s not about what’s new and shiny, but how “experiences” are evolving outside of the healthcare industry. Join us for this insightful session to learn how to operate effectively in the new “consumerism.”
Learning Objectives:
- Understand how satisfaction measures of the past are obsolete to enhance clinical services and patient experience outcomes for patients, families, and communities.
- Learn how to adapt to be more consumer-centric in the future to ensure care planning and execution result in an ideal standard of patient care.
- Deploy a “Do this / Not That” strategy for execution of patient experience interventions from both bedside and leadership perspectives.
11:00 – 11:15 a.m.
Break
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Jessalynn White
Director of Medication Safety
Norton Healthcare Pharmacy Services
This session will illuminate the ways in which Quality Leaders can promote safe medication administration through a variety of Quality Improvement applications that can be easily implemented in real-life health care settings. We will identify the most common complications that may result from failing to utilize a truly interdisciplinary approach in the implementation of these QI processes, and failsafe methods by which those failures may be eradicated from a well-executed PI project.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify a minimum of three Quality Improvement applications that Quality Leaders can utilize to promote safe medication administration.
- List the most common complications that are seen when a robustly inter-disciplinary approach is not used when implementing PI project work around the reduction of medication administration errors.
- Discuss the failsafe methods by which Quality Leaders may circumvent or derail failings that result from a unilateral or limited-discipline approach to improvement.
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Lunch and Networking
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Digital Poster Presentations
Poster presentations will highlight the quality improvement projects taking place in hospitals across Kentucky to reduce health care deficiencies, advance safety in health care, and improve quality outcomes.
2:00 – 2:15 p.m.
2:15 – 4:30 p.m.
Digital Poster Presentations
Poster presentations will highlight the quality improvement projects taking place in hospitals across Kentucky to reduce health care deficiencies, advance safety in health care, and improve quality outcomes.
4:30 p.m.
Special Needs
KHA wishes to take all steps necessary to ensure no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated, or otherwise treated differently than other individuals because of the absence of auxiliary aids or other services. If you need such assistance, please contact Kris Allen, kallen@kyha.com or call 502-426-6220.