The American Hospital Association (AHA) has created and filled a new senior leadership role to oversee AHA's health equity and inclusion strategies, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts.

• Illinois: AHA has created and filled a new senior leadership role to oversee AHA's health equity and inclusion strategies. AHA has appointed Joy Lewis, who previously served as AHA's VP for strategic health planning, to the new role of SVP of health equity strategies. Lewis, who will also serve as executive director of AHA's Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, will lead the implementation of initiatives and programs aimed at promoting "just and equitable health care" (Paavola, Becker's Hospital Review, 12/18; Ross Johnson, Modern Healthcare, 12/17; Blackman, HealthLeaders Media, 12/18).

• Maryland: CMS on Thursday announced it has extended data submission deadlines for providers participating in certain Medicare quality reporting and value-based programs by nearly one month. CMS said it is extending the third quarter submission deadlines to allow providers to focus their attention on patient care amid America's coronavirus epidemic. The deadline extensions will apply to seven programs, including the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program, Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program, Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program, and the End Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program (Paavola, Becker's CFO Report, 12/18; CMS release, 12/17).

• Massachusetts: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has tapped Sandhya Rao as its new CMO. Previously, Rao served as VP of clinical strategy at Haven, a joint health care venture formed by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway, which has experienced a number of high-profile exits since the company formed in 2018. Earlier in her career, Rao, who practices internal medicine, was senior medical director for population health management at Mass General Brigham, associate medical director of the Mass General Physicians Organization, and a business analyst at McKinsey and Co (Haefner, Becker's Payer Issues, 12/17).