Resource Library

Checklists A Trustee Checklist to Address Time Challenges As health care organizations face a number of emerging challenges, the compensation committee of the not-for-profit hospital and health system board is well served to review and update the executive compensation program periodically.

With training and support, physicians can become effective team leaders.

Boards can advocate for policy changes or ways to harness community resources.

Staying forward-focused as a trustee requires a combination of time management, prioritization and preventive efforts.

As payers shift financial risk to providers through more advanced payment models, trustees will need to help their organizations build new capabilities for succeeding under these payment arrangements.

Webinar: The first thing any effective board or leadership group does is decide how it will make decisions. Further, effective boards develop different, clearly defined processes to make decisions of different magnitudes. Yet, many boards have never had an explicit conversation about or developed multiple approaches to this most critical of governance functions — their decision making. This webinar will outline several different, practical and effective decision making techniques to expand your board’s tool kit of processes and techniques for making effective decisions.

The sample dashboards that follow provide examples for a multihospital system as well as a single community hospital.

Health care boards that take a broader view of “quality” and incorporate measures that reflect this understanding are better able to assess performance in the right areas.

The patient experience reflects the organization’s culture. The board must foster a culture that supports employees and providers to deliver the best possible experience time after time.

Up-to-date, clearly written and concisely constructed bylaws can support oversight of current performance and enable an organization to nimbly confront challenges to its viability.

Education, preparation and collegiality can empower physician and lay member trustees to make fair and thoroughly vetted decisions.

Health systems that take the time to assess the role and value of subsidiary boards, and invest in educating their members, can maintain a key community connection that might otherwise be diminished or lost.

The best boards revisit their committee structures, responsibilities and information flow to ensure detailed oversight while devoting more time to strategic and policy issues.

For effective cultural stewardship, boards need to promote behavioral expectations for patient care and make sure that espoused values and norms are respected throughout the organization.

Millennials use the health care system in a unique way. Trustees must be attentive to their views and recruit them to the board for its long-term sustainability.

Hospitals and health systems are finding a range of ways to integrate behavioral and physical care in a primary care clinic, thereby improving patient outcomes and lowering costs.

Trustees should take steps to understand and reduce the risk of large-scale data breaches.

The health care field is changing. Hospitals are partnering with other health care providers and experimenting with new ways to create centers for excellence, as well as better integrate care within the community. By finding non-traditional ways to move care into communities, hospitals become more accountable and patients can experience improved wellness, expanded services and access to even better quality care. These activities can also involve mergers and acquisitions. These changes can affect areas of the organization responsible for advancing philanthropy.

In today’s environment of change and transformation, some nonprofit hospitals and health systems are considering the possibility of selling to for-profit providers. A central concern for boards engaged in strategic deliberations about a potential sale is preserving the charitable mission, values and legacy of their nonprofit health care organization.

Alignment between the health care organization's strategic priorities and charitable funding priorities is essential to maximize the impact of donor dollars. However, many organizations fail to secure a shared vision, so philanthropy is used to advance low value priorities or development officers are left to de facto set hospital strategy.