Resource Library

A physician compact outlines the organization's and physician's responsibilities. Reprinted with permission from Virginia Mason Medical Center.

Board self‐evaluation is an important process. Surveys by The Governance Institute have shown that making self‐assessment a board priority is associated with high performing boards. Yet, amidst seemingly more important board business, it’s easy for self‐assessment to become a rote exercise.

This is a sample committee charter: people and culture committee.

Despite the importance of the role, many boards do not give selection and preparation of the board chair the attention they should. In a recent survey by The Governance Institute, 64% of boards said they had established an explicit process for selection of the board chair but these processes often are little more than a thoughtful conversation among the executive or governance committee about the next chair.

Increasing diversity in health care leadership and eliminating care disparities are critical to ensuring high-quality care for all. The renamed Institute for Diversity and Health Equity has created a new model for the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) continued work on these issues and is engaging broader participation.

Board and Committee Composition and Succession Planning...

A critical need exists to elevate the discussion about workforce planning and development to ensure it becomes a standing, rather than crisis-driven, component of comprehensive strategic planning for hospitals and health systems.

As health care field changes become more complex, savvy board and executive leaders are intentionally increasing the time that their boards spend in robust discussions of strategic challenges and opportunities.

The Triple Aim of improving the experience of care, improving the health of populationsand reducing per capita costs of health care is a nationally recognized goal that provides context for much of the work now underway to redesign existing systems for care, payment and collaboration to achieve better health outcomes for all Americans.

Every day, health systems, hospitals and post-acute care (PAC) providers – such as longterm care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies – confront the daunting task of complying with a growing number of federal regulations.

Because of this generation’s size and increasing influence, Millennials are being surveyed and studied to better understand what makes them tick and how they may play a role in fundamentally reshaping how we live, work—and govern—our organizations.

Download the 2018-2023 report. In the new environment, leaders must stay abreast of the trends highlighted in Futurescan to successfully move ahead on the long road toward value-based healthcare.

While most organizations conduct annual board self-assessments, it seems that few boards actually use the results of those assessments to develop specific plans for improvement. According to PriceWaterhouseCooper’s 2017 Annual Corporate Directors Survey, board members’ dissatisfaction with their fellow trustees has reached an all-time high.

As medical costs consume an ever increasing share of businesses’ profits, self-funded employers and public purchasers of health insurance are becoming more aggressive than ever before in direct contracting with providers.

This diagnostic is designed to help boards and organization leaders identify challenges that may be impeding efforts to improve quality. Developed by Jim Conway, this resource draws on 20 years of personal governance experience as well as learning from the literature and the shared experience of trustees, executives, patients, family members, staff, teachers, and students.

As strategic planning becomes a more intense focus for hospital boards, lessons from publicly traded companies may be instructive.

The AHA’s 2017 report documents how leading health care organizations and their boards, in collaboration with other community partners, are beginning to expand efforts to addressthe myriad of social determinants that significantly affect the health of their communities.

Over the last decade, and especially since the Enron failure, boards of all types have been working to enhance their performance. They ensure their composition is competency-based; they align their structures with their strategies; and they have robust, written governance procedures.

Health systems and hospitals are becoming increasingly complex, expanding beyond the traditional hospital/parent company model to include new structures and strategic partnerships to support a wide range of care for patients in their communities.

While most health care governing boards may still rely on paper packets and board agenda books for board and committee meetings, adoption of board portals— Web-based, online workspaces that support health care governance—appears to be catching up with use in other sectors.