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Lessons Learned from Foster G. McGaw Prize Recipients Community Partnership Profiles - Advances in Health Care Governance Series

The role of the board is to govern, not manage, the organization. To that end, the board carries out four roles.

AHA’s Center for Healthcare Governance would like to thank Sierra Vista Regional Health Center and its Board of Trustees for sharing this sample mentoring feedback form.

All new board members should participate in an orientation process shortly after election to the board. To design your board’s orientation process, consider these best practices.

A decade ago, BoardSource, an organization supporting nonprofit boards, developed a well known list of aspirational principles of governance. For us they still ring true: “mission driven,” “ethos of transparency,” “compliance with integrity.”

This report discusses the complex challenges involved in community health improvement and makes the case for why health systems should take a substantial role in the multi-sector collaboration needed to achieve significant impact.

Be sure every member fully understands his or her accountability, responsibilities and the expectations of the office, and document it all in a written position description...

This checklist poses questions about whether your board is following recommended practices for strategic planning.

Governance responsibilities today are so significant that board members must bring more than commitment to the mission and interest in serving. As William Bowen writes, every trustee should bring a “specific competence or experience needed on the board.” This sample provides a board policy statement on competency-based recruitment, election and re-election of board members. Use it to customize a process for your board.

Boards can play a key role in guiding, supporting young health system leaders.

CEOs need to target and develop physicians to play leading roles in health care transformation. Perhaps the greatest challenge health care organizations face over the next decade is physician engagement. As integration and value-driven care continue to advance, physician leaders will be increasingly called upon to meet the demands of a changing landscape.

Boards and CEOs must constructively address the succession imperative. Succession planning for the CEO and other senior leadership positions is critical to organizational continuity and stability, especially in a transforming healthcare field.

The American Hospital Association (AHA) Board of Trustees, in 2015, created a task force to address these challenges and examine ways in which hospitals can help ensure access to health care services in vulnerable communities. The task force considered a number of integrated, comprehensive strategies to reform health care delivery and payment. Their report sets forth a menu of options from which communities may select based on their unique needs, support structures and preferences.

CEO goal-setting and evaluation is a fundamental responsibility of a governing board. These questions are designed to help boards assess their CEO evaluation process and determine if any improvements are necessary.

See the attached sample strategic planning policy.

Regular board self-evaluation is integral to effective governance. Use the questions in the attachment to assess whether your board is getting maximum mileage from its self-evaluation process.

This year’s Thought Leader Forum was an opportunity to engage in executive dialogue around the topic of change leadership with a panel of top executives whose organizations have recently undergone significant changes, such as care model transformation, unconventional affiliations, large-scale acquisition, new service strategy, and infrastructure or organizational changes. We will discuss how they executed and managed change; key lessons learned; and how culture, engagement, brand, and systems factored into the changes.

The American Hospital Association’s report, Hospitals and Care System of the Future, describes a series of “must do” strategies and future core competencies hospitals will need as they transform themselves from first curve to second curve delivery systems, driven by a shift from volume-driven to value-driven payment systems.

As health care transforms, boards are tying executive compensation to long-term performance.

The board has three legal duties: a duty of obedience to the charitable purpose of the organization, a duty of loyalty, to act based on best interests of the organization, and a duty of care. The role of the board is to govern, not manage, the organization.