Children’s hospital leaders rarely have the luxury of focusing on just one challenge at a time. Workforce pressures, rapid advances in technology, operational demands, and an evolving health care environment require leaders to make consequential decisions while continuing to deliver on their organizations’ missions.
That reality makes opportunities to step outside the day-to-day especially valuable.
At the Children’s Hospital Association’s 2026 Annual Leadership Conference (ALC) in Phoenix, leaders from across the children’s hospital community came together to exchange perspectives, learn from one another, and consider how they are approaching some of the challenges shaping pediatric health care.
This year’s ALC set a record for participation, with 656 members checking in, including more than 200 first-time attendees. Standing-room-only sessions and keynotes underscored the appetite for shared learning and new perspectives. The attendance numbers matter less as a measure of the conference itself than for what they represent: hundreds of leaders bringing different experiences, questions, and ideas into the same conversations.
Programming reflected many of the issues leaders are navigating, including artificial intelligence, workforce well-being, organizational trust, and strategies for leading through uncertainty. Leaders learned from peers and industry leaders who understand the distinct realities of children’s hospitals, bringing new perspectives to the challenges facing pediatric health care.
Trust as a foundation for leadership
Opening keynote speaker Lisa Sun, founder and CEO of GRAVITAS, challenged attendees to see trust as a foundation for how teams communicate, collaborate, and perform. She emphasized that trust starts with the individual, encouraging leaders to lead with courage, compassion, and curiosity while creating space for honest dialogue.
Caring for the caregivers
Workforce well-being was the focus of keynote speaker J. Corey Feist, CEO and co-founder of the Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation. His message challenged leaders to look beyond individual resilience and address the systems and policies that can make it harder for health care workers to get the support they need.
Organizations can put that idea into action through the Wellbeing First Champion Challenge, which helps health systems remove intrusive mental health questions and stigmatizing language from credentialing applications.
Moving thoughtfully on AI
The conference closed with a look at artificial intelligence. Robert M. Wachter, MD, chair of the UC San Francisco Department of Medicine, encouraged health care leaders to approach AI with both urgency and discipline, pointing to its potential to reduce administrative burdens, support clinical decisions, and improve patient safety.
His message: Don’t pursue AI for AI’s sake. Start with meaningful problems, prioritize high-benefit, lower-risk applications, and build in strong governance and ongoing monitoring. For health care leaders, the challenge is balancing the risks of moving forward with the risks of standing still.
Learning from the people facing the same questions
The value of gathering leaders from across children’s hospitals and health systems isn’t that everyone leaves with the same answer. Often, the opposite is more impactful.
One organization may have developed a stronger approach to building trust across teams. Another may have lessons to share about AI governance, unexpected downtime, or navigating organizational change. Bringing those experiences together gives leaders an opportunity to compare approaches, challenge their assumptions, and take ideas back to their own organizations.
That exchange was particularly meaningful this year with 209 first-time attendees adding new perspectives to the conversation alongside veteran participants.
The challenges facing children’s hospitals won’t be solved during a few days in Phoenix. But creating space for leaders to step outside their organizations, talk candidly with peers, and learn how others are approaching the same questions can help them return home with a broader view of what’s possible.
And sometimes, that’s exactly where progress begins.
Learn about the 2027 Together for Kids Pediatric Quality Conference. Registration opens in January.
