Quality Institute announces Kershner Award finalists!
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2026 Innovations in Quality Improvement Award finalists
On behalf of the AAAHC Institute for Quality Improvement, AAAHC would like to thank all organizations that submitted studies for the 2026 Bernard A. Kershner Innovations in Quality Improvement Award program.
It takes considerable persistence to develop, implement, and demonstrate a successful and measurable quality improvement program. We appreciate the time you have taken to describe your program using the AAAHC six-component quality improvement framework.
2026 finalists by setting
Surgical/Procedural Finalists
- Unified Medication Reconciliation & Post-Op Chart Form
Park Avenue Premier Surgical, PLLC, New York, NY - Multimodal Approach to Colonoscopy Preparation Education
Allegheny Health Network – Bethel Park Ambulatory Surgery Center, Bethel Park, PA - Leveraging World Health Organization Multi-Modal Hand Hygiene Strategies to Improve Hand Hygiene Compliance Among Surgical Residents in Ambulatory Surgical Centers
Harris Health, Houston, TX
Primary Care Finalists
- Radiology Improvement Study
Elbowoods Memorial Health Center, New Town, ND - Proactive Digital Outreach: Transforming Chlamydia Screening at Scale
Sutter Bay Medical Foundation, Emeryville, CA - Closing the Immunization Gap: A Quality Improvement Initiative to Increase Vaccine Uptake in Student Health
Medical Home, Bond Community Health Center, Inc., Tallahassee, FL
Bernard A. Kershner champions QI innovation
AAAHC recognizes exemplary QI studies in both the surgical/procedural and primary care settings through an award program, established in 2004 by the AAAHC Institute for Quality Improvement. The award was originally called the Innovations in Quality Improvement Award. A few years later, the AAAHC Quality Institute changed the name of the award to the Bernard A. Kershner Innovations in Quality Improvement Award to honor Bernie Kershner, the first Chairman of the AAAHC Board of Directors, formerly the AAAHC Institute Board of Trustees.
Bernard Kershner founded one of the first non-physician-owned multispecialty surgery centers and was the first non-physician President of FASA, now known as the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA). As a medical professional with a drive for excellence and quality, he was quoted as saying that he established procedures for his surgery centers that were “far above what could possibly be required of a health facility to raise the bar for professional competency at every single level of the organization.” We hope to communicate his passion for quality through this award program that we affectionately refer to as “The Bernies.”