Resource Library

For the past few years, “prices” in health care have generated some eye-popping headlines in the press — most notably drug prices. It is not news to anyone in health care that the prices providers pay for drugs and for health care technology seem to rise every year. Further, providers face the daunting task of needing to buy ever-increasing amounts of technology just to keep pace with clinical innovation.

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.

Sustainable change requires a strategy to align improvement efforts and act on the interdependencies of four performance domains.

This webinar recording offers a different approach to new member orientation. You’ll hear about a set of action steps that can help your organization develop a conscious, ongoing orientation process – one that helps the entire board form a high-functioning team much faster as each new trustee comes on.

Boards need to assess troubled areas in their organizations, set goals for improving the culture, and hold leaders accountable for change.

While your organization may strive to improve safety, patient experience, workforce engagement and clinical quality as discrete performance domains, your leadership — and your resources — may be convened around multiple strategies and action plans. Without a single strategy that aligns improvement efforts and acts on the interdependencies of vertical domains, siloed planning can undermine workforce coordination and sustainable change.

Boards can foster patient-centered care by encouraging meaningful conversations during patient encounters and by incentivizing clinicians.

The template is designed to help a hospital or health system develop profiles of disruptive competitors that are already in its service area (or are anticipated to enter its service area). An interactive MS Word document of this template with fields is available.

Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare continues to transform itself to best adapt to the demands of the changing health care environment. As part of the current transformation, the health system has organized its leadership to optimize the interdependencies of safety, quality, patient experience and workforce engagement. Under this construct, the system streamlines decision making, minimizes waste and redundancy, and positions the organization to deliver exceptional patient-centered care.

Hospitals and systems must understand the threats posed by market disruptors and craft specific strategies to protect their missions.

This webinar from governance expert Jamie Orlikoff, explores the hospital board’s crucial responsibility for medical staff credentialing – one of the most difficult governance functions to perform effectively, and one of the most important board responsibilities for patient quality and safety. Become comfortable with the basics of credentialing and how to effectively oversee it to both protect patients and to assure fair, thorough and consistent treatment of physicians. Trustees will acquire a better understanding of the different but related processes involved in appointment and reappointment or physicians to the medical staff, and the delineation of clinical privileges.

Corporate boards, across industry sectors, are increasingly being called upon to support management as the company responds to how innovative competitors “disrupt” their existing business model. Blockbuster, Borders and ESPN are prime examples of established companies that have been pulled into the financial undertow created by nimble disruptors.

A diagnostic tool and organization assessment can help boards address barriers to effective quality oversight.

Health care providers must draw lessons from the core capabilities of successful companies in the internet economy.

Health care is ripe for change. The evidence is all around us. A majority of health care leaders recently surveyed said hospitals and health systems are most in need of disruptive innovation (New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst, February 16, 2017). Consumers are taking charge of their own health and seeking providers that deliver high-quality, affordable and accessible care in ways they have come to expect from their favorite retailers. And disrupters from within and outside of health care are joining forces and competing with traditional health care organizations to give consumers what they are looking for.

These are exciting and challenging times for board members of not-for-profit health care organizations. The main driver of this state of affairs is a field-wide transformation that promises to result in better quality, higher value, and population health improvement. Most board members see this as a positive move for their organization and community, since their missions often speak to the need to improve the health of the communities they serve.

The following is intended to be an example that boards should adapt to meet their individual needs.

The following is intended to be an example that boards should adapt to meet their individual needs. Effective governance depends on the right mixture of skills, experience, personal qualities and diversity among the members of the hospital board.