Resource Library

This series of brief videos and accompanying board discussion questions features prominent health care governance experts offering advice on key issues that boards need to address in this rapidly changing health care environment.

Doing your duty is not just about success; it is also about actively engaging in practices that promote good governance. Take this quiz to review and reflect on how your board compares with governance best practices.

Fulfilling duties includes actively engaging in practices that promote good governance. A review of best practices enables the board to reflect on opportunities for improvement.

The legal authority to approve, limit or deny provider credentials and privileges is a fundamental board responsibility. Organizations that centralize and standardize this process are better prepared to meet the field’s many changes and challenges.

What is the board’s role in shaping culture? Several health care leaders offer advice that reflects the diversity of their experiences.

Oversight of an employed physician network is a new and evolving role for your board. Focus on five key issues, and adopt three best practices, to help the network succeed.

An external review of workplace operations produces a Leadership Letter with observations and recommendations for continuous improvement, followed by open discussion among the board, CEO and top management.

To understand how the organization really functions on a day-to-day basis, boards need to gauge the hospital’s work life and its efficacy. Board responsibilities include: (a) understanding the hospital’s operating model and whether it actually performs in that mode, how critical decisions are made, and the hospital’s ability to recognize its own problems and “self-correct”; and (b) ensuring that it happens.

By tracking outcomes, the committee can ensure that the program operates consistently with the established philosophy and that areas requiring attention are readily identified. When combined with comprehensive tally sheets and affirmation that all executive compensation arrangements are fully disclosed to the committee, there is a comprehensive baseline underlying the committee’s deliberations.

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.

Discover the benefits of shared performance goals at the system level and how to implement them in your executive compensation program with AHA's tips.

Philanthropy can drive innovative initiatives to address social, economic, educational and quality of life issues in the community.

The seismic forces currently roiling health care present boards with a new set of profoundly consequential strategic options. These often involve significant risk, major mission shifts, and challengingly short windows of opportunity.

A good coach focuses on what the board chair wants to accomplish and designs a coaching process based on how the board chair experiences the role; on assessment of individual strengths and weaknesses; and on identifying and addressing blind spots. Each coaching process should be customized to meet the board chair’s individual needs and goals.

Making coaching available to an incoming board chair can build the chair's capacity to lead the board effectively.

Consumerism, personalized medicine, digital technology and artificial intelligence are fundamentally changing the way health care is purchased, delivered and organized.

With proper planning and investment, hospitals and health systems can reduce cyber risks and vulnerabilities.

Seven techniques can help support and strengthen your board's decision-making processes.

A growing movement of health care providers is systematically spreading best practices in the care of older adults.

Webinar Board Meetings: How to Drive Effective Board Dynamics The format of a board agenda can either drive effective strategic discussion or can stifle it. Presbyterian Health Plan (PHP) in Albuquerque, NM, put together an ad hoc committee that redesigned its board meetings to allow more time for strategic topics, streamlined the consent agenda, moved to using a board portal and iPads and created a role for the vice chair to observe the interactions of board members and provide feedback on the effectiveness of the board dynamics.