Five-Year Strategic Plan: August 2025 – July 2030
VISION & MISSION
Vision: Public health and healthcare working together effectively to prevent harm to people from outbreaks in healthcare settings.
Mission: To build capacity nationwide to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks in healthcare settings by convening public health and healthcare partners to identify gaps, share resources, and coordinate approaches
SITUATION SUMMARY & FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN “NORTH STAR”
Situation Summary
CORHA is operating at a critical juncture in the field of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial-resistant (AR) pathogen outbreaks (HAI/AR), which is marked by evolving public health threats, shifting funding and staffing, and increasing demands from the field for timely, coordinated guidance on outbreaks in healthcare settings. This strategic plan addresses these pressures by clarifying CORHA’s value proposition, strengthening its collaboration model, and ensuring its outputs are timely, relevant, and scalable within current and future resource constraints. CORHA has served those working in the field of HAI/AR for more than a decade. Through the adaptations described in this plan, it will continue to meet their needs for years to come.
Long-Term Vision of Success
Members of CORHA envision a future in which public health and healthcare collaborate seamlessly to prevent and rapidly detect and respond to outbreaks in healthcare settings, resulting in reduced harm to patients and communities. Stakeholders aspire for CORHA to function as a trusted, multidisciplinary convening body that identifies gaps, curates or develops resources as needed, and supports collaboration across the HAI/AR network of professionals. A successful future includes CORHA being recognized for its nimbleness, scientific rigor, the value of resources and perspectives it shares with the workforce, and its ability to bridge sectors and jurisdictions to improve outbreak readiness, response, and equity across the healthcare continuum.
CORHA’s Five-Year Strategic Plan “North Star”
Over the next five years, CORHA aims to become an effective national, multidisciplinary hub that enables rapid, science-informed, and equitable responses to outbreaks in healthcare settings. To achieve this, CORHA will restructure to enhance its function as a convener of cross-sector stakeholders and a trusted source for evidence-based resources, tools, and best practices. Its focus will be on identifying and addressing gaps in strategies or processes for preventing, detecting, and responding to outbreaks in healthcare settings. CORHA will streamline its governance and operations, strengthen strategic partnerships, and enhance its visibility and relevance at the state and local levels. Success will be defined by CORHA’s ability to influence practice across healthcare and public health systems, sustain active multidisciplinary engagement, and close the implementation gap through timely, practical, and user-centered guidance.
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
Five-Year Strategic Priorities (High-Level)
| 1 | Realign Vision, Mission, Operations & Governance |
| Five-Year Goal Statement: Through its updated vision, mission, model, and representative membership structure, CORHA provides clear value, enhanced engagement, and effective support to build capacity in the HAI/AR field. | |
| 2 | Strengthen Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement & Visibility |
| Five-Year Goal Statement: CORHA is widely recognized, valued, and actively engaged with by those working in the field of HAI/AR. | |
| 3 | Support National Coordination as a Cross-Sector Convenor |
| Five-Year Goal Statement: CORHA builds capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks in healthcare settings through cross-sector coordination at the national level. | |
| 4 | Promote Best Practices and Actionable Tools through the CORHA Website |
| Five-Year Goal Statement: The CORHA website promotes credible best practices, tools, and CORHA perspectives that build capacity for improved prevention, detection, and response to outbreaks in healthcare settings across sectors and jurisdictions. |
Strategic Priorities, Outcomes, and Milestone Objectives (Detail)
In each strategic priority area, Key Guiding Indicators have been identified and will be reviewed at least annually. These indicators provide important information on external trends and contextual factors relevant to each priority, which may influence how CORHA approaches its work. Milestone objectives provide direction on activities and initiatives in each strategic priority area that will lead to achieving the five-year goal statement. Success measures at the objective level define how success will be tracked and measured.