The future health care leaders and innovators are already here. Hundreds of early-career professionals, graduate students and health care leaders gathered in Atlanta to attend the Young Health Leader Summit, an annual two-day event hosted by the Advancement League.

The Advancement League is an organization that aids current leaders in advancing their careers and cultivates the next generation of leaders in the health care industry. In addition, the League brings exposure to non-traditional roles in health care, reimagining professional development and innovation through the summit.

The League was founded in 2018 by Antwan Williams, Alex Maiersperger and Sam Bulkoff. They aimed to create something that redefines experiential learning and emphasizes community impact through the League.

“The community impact gets better each year,” Williams said. “We’ve seen folks get jobs and take great ideas back to their organization. Before, we thought it was all about dollars, but now we learned that it’s more about ideas and scalable ideas that drive impact.”

As part of the summit, these scalable ideas were incorporated into an “Impact-a-Thon.”

During the Impact-a-Thon, attendees formed teams and spent 48 hours developing solutions to real-world health challenges relevant to communities across the country. Groups then had three to five minutes to present their creative solutions to a panel of nonprofit leaders.

“The people who participated in the challenge were just as excited because they got a chance to be reminded of why they entered this industry,” Williams said. “It was this nice blend of bringing in different experts, people that solve problems in their world, but they were able to wear a different hat for that day.

Jaquelynn Y. Orr, Kresge senior program officer for the Health Team, said that the annual summit provides a welcoming space where health care leaders can further explore their interests and help individuals transition into senior leadership positions.

“After participating in two of the Young Health Leader Summits, the term ‘young’ is relative,” Orr said. “By investing in members’ professional development and community needs, the summit helps to accelerate the career advancement of diverse talent and ensure that decision-making within health care reflects the diversity of the community while closing gaps in care through policy changes, community engagement and innovation in health care delivery.”

Some solutions included a mobile mental health bus for children, a school garden initiative, a student mental health support program using the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) framework and creative ways to bridge school and health systems through a student “Check-in and Check-out” app data.

Advancement League Director of Community Impact Moriam Yarrow, who helped spearhead the Impact-a-thon, was impressed with the solutions and the turnout. 

“It’s a space where you can learn and do at the same time, which is why I enjoyed the Impact challenge. Without all the rules and rigidness that we already experience in our day to day lives, it allows us to be creative in driving impact in the communities that we’re participating in,” Yarrow said.

The Advancement League is excited to share all its learnings at next year’s summit in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For Josh Pappas, an attendee and a worker in the health care startup sector, the summit and Impact-a-Thon presented a unique opportunity for people to come together and develop a plan.  

“It was all geared around, ‘how do we impact an organization in the community that we were fortunate  enough to have the conference in,’” Pappas said. “Ultimately, if you are trying to make an impact in health care, no matter where you are in your career, you are going to see a significant impact by attending the summit.”