What we do
The Conference of Metropolitan Hospital Associations is an affinity group comprised of metropolitan and regional healthcare association executives and assist member associations with education, networking and other professional services.
CMHA members gather several times during the year to exchange ideas and share best practices on a variety of complex community challenges, including networking opportunities with corporate sponsors.
During our annual meeting, CMHA members also explore non-dues revenue opportunities and strategic partnerships with corporate sponsors whereby members promote sponsor services/programs to over 1,400 individual health systems/hospitals in major metropolitan cities around the country.
How we got started
Message from Ed Rode
Retired CMHA Executive, 2000-2018
In 2010, I engaged in a delightful phone conversation with Howard Cook, the first CEO of the Chicago Hospital Council. Howard says that during the 1950s, as Vice President of the American Hospital Association, he regularly convened the various hospital associations throughout the country.
This included all the state associations, the metropolitan associations, and three regional associations, namely The Western Hospital Association, the Midwest Health Congress in Kansas City, and the New England Hospital Assembly.
After Howard left AHA and became the first CEO of the Chicago Hospital Council, AHA no longer wanted to support this activity, so he continued it on behalf of metropolitan associations. This arrangement began around 1960 and continued through the 1970s. In 1980, the metropolitan associations decided to incorporate.
In pulling together the incorporation documents, Howard emphasized the essential role of CMHA as an “idea exchange.” Howard has, on occasion, attended past CMHA annual meetings and tells this story:
“Two men sit down and talk about their business practices. If at the end of this meeting, they exchange one dollar, neither has gained anything. However, if each one walked away with one new idea, they have truly exchanged something of value.”
– Howard Cook
I love this story. It reflects where CMHA has been, where we are now, and where we will continue to go in the future — sharing and exchanging ideas and learning from each other along the way.
Michael R. Dunaway
CMHA Executive Director
CMHA Leadership
Michael R. Dunaway is a healthcare executive with 45 years of experience, including hospital management and senior hospital association leadership positions. Most recently, Dunaway served as the senior vice president for the Missouri Hospital Association and president of The Health Alliance of MidAmerica, LLC (a regional office of the Kansas and Missouri Hospital Associations) serving 100-member hospitals in the bi-state metropolitan regions of Kansas City and St. Louis.
Dunaway retired in 2019 and currently serves as the CMHA Executive Director, where he supports the Executive Committee and member organizations, manages the day-to-day CMHA activities, coordinates CMHA meetings (including recruiting corporate sponsors for the annual meeting) and oversees the annual compensations and benefit survey process for association members.
Dunaway has an MBA in Health Services Management, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Allied Health Education. He and his wife live in Leawood, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City.