76 Speakers, 45 Webinars, 15 Months: A Look Back at The NHC’s COVID-19 Webinar Series
By Mary Crowther, Senior Associate, Development
The National Health Council (NHC) includes among its membership more than 60 patient organizations that represent and serve the over 160 million people in the U.S. with one or more chronic diseases or disabilities — those very people most susceptible to the COVID-19 virus.
Since the start of the pandemic, the demand on these patient groups has been more intense than ever before. Patient groups contended with how to meet the needs of their constituents, who are not only the most at risk for COVID-19, but also vulnerable to the overall effects of
“I've been really impressed with all of the sessions, they've been terrific.”
the pandemic on everyday life. At the same time, these organizations dealt with changes to revenue generating events such as meetings, galas, bikes, walks that were canceled, often necessitating significant budget cuts.
In support of our members, the NHC has hosted regular discussions on critical issues related to COVID-19 as part of our COVID-19 CEO and Senior Staff Webinar Series. The webinars provided a venue for NHC-member patient-group and nonprofit Chief Executive Officers to network and share information on how the pandemic was affecting the operations of their organizations and share ideas for overcoming the challenges being faced.
Over the past 15 months, the NHC hosted 45 webinars with 76 different speakers. The topics ranged from the impact of COVID-19 on mental health; telemedicine; medical and drug supply shortages; and planning and hosting virtual events, meetings, and fly-ins.
Some speakers the NHC was honored to host included:
- Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, to speak about Combatting Vaccine Hesitancy.
- Dave Hering, the North American Regional President of Global Vaccines at Pfizer, joined us to share Insights from Pfizer on the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout.
- David Inoue, the Executive Director of the Japanese American Citizens League on Xenophobia and Public Health.
“I just wish I could have participated in more of them this year!”
You can read a full list of our webinars here.
As this series comes to a close, we would like to extend a thank you to all our members who participated. Your contributions have been invaluable. You generously shared your time, participated as speakers, provided feedback to us and your fellow members, and served as support to your fellow members throughout the pandemic.
We will return in September with a three-part COVID-19 Leadership Series in partnership with Deloitte. In the future, we will continue supporting you, our members, on a broad base of leadership and capacity-building topics. Please contact the NHC Membership Team with any questions.