Resource Library

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.”

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

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 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.

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.

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

Executive and board support is needed for physician leadership that lasts. Collaborative leadership with physicians will be essential for hospitals to successfully create and maintain agile organizations that can compete in the rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

A three-stage framework can help boards to identify information technology priorities

Four areas of knowledge and skills must be mastered to make the move from fee for service.

When trustees are appointed to the board of Manatee Memorial Hospital, they have a steep learning curve as they settle into this new role. Providing an orientation program and performing frequent performance evaluations help to ensure that trustees receive the training, resources and ongoing support they need to serve the organization.

Healthcare executive support can influence the value these organizations provide.

This publication discusses observations and trends about system development and identifies models of governance that are emerging as new organizations form and determine what it really means to become a system. It also reviews issues and obstacles that can arise as models of governance change and suggests steps boards can take to address them on the path toward more effective system governance.

Incentive compensation plans are intended to focus executives’ attention on their organizations’ most vital priorities and initiatives. As health care organizations revise their business strategies to address the ongoing transformation of care delivery and payment, health care boards also need to reassess the structure and measures of performance in their executive incentive compensation plans.

This monograph offers guidance on proactively considering best practices in executive pay, including the changing role of incentive compensation, good governance practices to mitigate risk and choosing appropriate peer comparison data to support the compensation decision-making process.

Sound policy management can support the board’s risk and compliance oversight responsibilities

What if the typical hospital board meeting — multiple hours spent on endless pages of financial data, slide after slide of bullet points and little time left for meaningful discussion — could be more engaging and less time-consuming? With some planning and practice, boards and senior executives can make this happen.

In July 2011, five national health associations jointly urged hospital and health system leaders to take three steps to help eliminate health disparities and improve quality of care. These steps called for increasing...