Michigan Health & Hospital Association

Objective: A digital home worthy of Michigan’s hospitals

Founded in 1919 and headquartered in Okemos, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association is the voice of every community hospital in the state. Its mission is simple to state and enormous in scope: advancing health for people and communities. The MHA represents Michigan’s hospitals and health systems at the state and federal level on the issues that shape care, from affordability and Medicaid policy to workforce, behavioral health, and rural access. Through the MHA Keystone Center, a federally listed patient safety organization, thousands of hospital team members work together to prevent harm and improve quality. The MHA Center of Rural Excellence works to keep care within reach in small communities, and the association’s economic impact reporting documents an industry that supports more than a million Michigan jobs and generates over one hundred billion dollars a year in economic value.

An organization that speaks for that much of Michigan needs a website that does a lot at once: inform legislators and the press, serve members and their staff, surface data and reports, and help the public find a hospital. The MHA first chose Web Ascender in 2016 to build that site, and chose us again in 2026 to reimagine it.

What Web Ascender Did

• Built the MHA’s WordPress website in 2016 - a member-focused site that organized advocacy, issues, events, news, and member services into one clear structure
• Redesigned it in 2026 on WordPress and Breakdance - a modern, confident design with a flexible page builder that lets MHA staff assemble new pages and campaigns without a developer, while the design system keeps everything on brand
• Brought the MHA family under one roof - the MHA Keystone Center and the MHA Center of Rural Excellence are integrated into the main site’s navigation, with a member login for the content and tools reserved for hospitals
• Find a Member Hospital - an interactive map of every member hospital across Michigan, searchable by address and radius, hospital type, and name, with clustering and county boundaries so residents, reporters, and policymakers can find a hospital in seconds
• A newsroom built for the pace of advocacy - searchable, filterable news by category, with sign-up for the MHA Monday Report, podcast links, and media contacts front and center
• Custom web applications - beyond the website, Web Ascender has built custom software for the MHA, including KeyMetrics, a multi-tenant data collection and benchmarking platform covered in its own case study
• Managed hosting, server management, and security - we run the infrastructure behind the MHA website: hosting, server administration, security hardening, WordPress and plugin updates, backups, and uptime monitoring

The Outcome

For a decade, the MHA website has been the reliable front door for Michigan’s hospital community, and with the 2026 redesign it looks and works like the institution behind it. The MHA communications team manages all of the site’s day-to-day content on their own: news, issue pages, events, reports, and new sections built with Breakdance. Web Ascender handles everything underneath, so the site stays secure, fast, and available for the members, lawmakers, and residents who rely on it.

Ten years in, the relationship keeps growing. From the original build to the redesign to custom applications, Web Ascender remains the MHA’s technology partner for whatever comes next.