Strategic Plan

Vision

Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect, impacting approximately 1 out of every 100 births. Fortunately, thanks to medical advances, people with congenital heart disease (CHD) are surviving and thriving into adulthood more than ever before—nearly 2 million American adults live life every day with CHD in some form, and the population grows by 5% annually. However, despite the advances, today fewer than 10% of all adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) patients receive the specialized, lifelong care they need.

As the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA) paves the way for future generations, we focus on lifelong care of the millions with CHD—from infancy and youth to adulthood and into advanced age. We are the voice and strength of CHD and the go-to resource for our community of patients, their loved ones, and medical providers, as well as for the media, legislators, advocates and donors.

This 2023-2025 Strategic Plan is the final phase of Vision 2025 that was developed in 2017 and has guided the work of ACHA since that time. As with the other Strategic Plans developed under the Vision 2025 umbrella, the 2023-2025 Strategic Plan encompasses these core concepts:

We will improve access to quality care for CHD patients.
We focus on advocacy.
We focus on research.
We will improve the awareness of CHD.
We are financially strong.
We are a national organization with regional presence.

Our Mission

The mission of ACHA is to empower the congenital heart disease community by advancing access to resources and specialized care that improve patient-centered outcomes.

Strengths and Opportunities

As we develop strategies to guide our work from 2023-2025, we will focus on expansion of our core strengths, which include:

Our unique status as the only national patient advocacy organization solely dedicated to the ACHD population.
Our well-earned reputation for developing and disseminating timely, credible information to large numbers of ACHD stakeholders through various platforms.
Our expertise in elevating consistency and standardization of CHD care nationwide through the rigorous ACHA ACHD Accreditation Program.
Our opportunity to unlock new discoveries and impact quality of life as the only nonprofit research program solely funding ACHD studies.
Our ability to facilitate crucial access to appropriate care through the ACHA Clinic Directory.
Our commitment to connecting CHD patients and family members with trained peers and other critical resources in their communities.

At the same time, we also recognize that these next three years are critical to initiating steps that will position ACHA to increase its impact and organizational capacity for the future:

We must determine and consistently market the value of membership for both patients/family members and medical professionals to drive individuals to become members of ACHA and organically grow all facets of the organization.
We must strive to meet our stakeholders on their terms, whether that be through enhanced digital educational tools, exploration of new social platforms and/or rallying grassroots efforts in local communities.
We must constantly evaluate emerging community needs and programming to see what ACHA is positioned to uniquely address, while not duplicating activities that others are already doing well.
We must focus on building bridges with primary care physicians, general cardiologists, professional organizations, medical industry representatives, hospital administrators, and other like-minded patient advocacy organizations as appropriate.
We need to develop a diversified financial plan that allows for realistic growth of existing revenue streams but encourages opportunities to innovate and places significant organizational emphasis on securing new corporate dollars.

As we embark upon the 2023-2025 Strategic Plan, it is important to note that ACHA—and the world—is still emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. We must acknowledge that it remains largely uncertain as to what extent the lingering effects of the pandemic may impact the next three years. We are bullish about ACHA’s future and are proceeding with optimism but stand ready to pivot once again should that become necessary.

Our 2023-2025 Strategic Goals

We have identified various strategic goals and related objectives that will guide our work for the next three years (2023-2025) under the core concepts of Vision 2025:

We will improve access to quality care for CHD patients.
We focus on advocacy.
We focus on research.
We will improve the awareness of CHD.
We are financially strong.
We are a national organization with regional presence.

Our Core Values

We encourage collaboration.
We empower each other.
We embrace change.
We are committed to excellence.
We act lawfully and with integrity.

Our Impact

We recognize the value in and responsibility for creating a meaningful multi-year strategic plan that will guide us to be the foremost resource for the CHD community. We worked to create clear outcomes by engaging our most critical stakeholders on this important journey. The outcomes that we envision by 2025 include:

That CHD and ACHA are household names.
That our emphasis on advocacy and research will bring about systemic change in healthcare policy, surveillance and treatment.
That far fewer are lost to care.
That the standard of accessible, comprehensive care has increased throughout the country.
That we are viewed as both a national and a local organization.
That the organization is financially sound and able to increase its capacity to keep up with the rapid CHD population increase.
That ACHA has emerged as a driving force for gathering and sharing relevant data that advances CHD knowledge and understanding.
That there is one strong voice in the CHD community that is clear and consistent, not fragmented.

If you would like to see our full 2023-2025 Strategic Plan, please contact ACHA President and CEO Mark Roeder at mroeder@achaheart.org.