Resource Library

Much has been written about the resources that hospitals should provide their board members to develop their governance expertise. Generally, a good orientation to the board’s work, educational sessions at board meetings, an annual retreat, periodic attendance at outside educational programs and frequent performance evaluation are some of the basics for any board.

With health reform comes increased demand for transparency about organizational performance and accountability. While most hospital and health system senior leaders realize this, board members, surprisingly, may not. As such, boards must have a clear understanding of their accountability to the organization’s stakeholders in order to govern effectively.

Health care governing board members confront a complex and changing financial landscape in their role as stewards of health care organizations. Hospitals and health systems have faced slim bottom lines for an extended period that have reduced available dollars to invest in organizational advancement and forced many to change strategy, forego acquisition of new technology, delay physical plant improvements, reduce services and streamline staff.

Is participation in a super clinically integrated network (CIN) in your organization’s future? Here are some questions for health care organization boards and leadership to consider.

The evolving U.S. health care system will demand more standardization, reduced variation in outcomes and lower costs, necessitating new care delivery methods. A variety of models may emerge but physicians are the one constant to any emerging care paradigm, making hospital physician alignment imperative.

A new business model is emerging to transform the care delivery and payment systems. The transition is underway in many communities — moving health care delivery from emphasizing sick care to addressing population health management.

A hospital-physician network spanning multiple partners may be an ideal fit for a smaller system

Recruiting board members is a challenge for every hospital and health system, but the task is particularly difficult in small communities. At Benefits Health System, Great Falls, Mont., our pool of candidates is largely limited to the city’s 60,000 residents, despite the fact that we are the tertiary referral center for a population of 250,000 across nearly 40,000 square miles of rural Montana.

When someone walks into your hospital, his first impression is created by the physical architecture. But his lasting impression — and what he is most likely to talk about when he returns home — will be determined by what we call the “invisible architecture” of core values, organizational culture and behavioral expectations.

Executives, trustees and physicians should be the leading advocates of philanthropy.

The emerging health care environment has changed the game for health care organizations and for physician leadership. The turbulence of that environment is going to require what could be called “agile organizations” adept at matching leadership and decision-making styles and setting and executing strategies appropriate to the nature and depth of environmental change.

Mentoring, a process that pairs board members who are new to their roles with more seasoned board and executive resources for growth and development, traditionally has been used by health care boards to orient new trustees for board service.

As hospitals buy physician practices, board compensation oversight must shift into high gear.

Society and industries are always evolving; revolutionary change occurs sporadically when powerful forces align to disrupt the old order. The health care delivery system today is in the midst of an historic transformation to redesign how care is delivered. The quite immodest aim is to take 20 to 30 percent of costs out of the system while maintaining or improving clinical outcomes and patients’ health.

With CEO support and opportunities for education, trustees can become better hospital leaders

Steps CEOs and boards should take to understand and improve engagement.

Although scorecards that measure health system performance against established metrics have become an increasingly common and useful tool in the trustee’s governance toolbox, finding concrete, comprehensive ways to measure how well the organization is achieving its strategic goals — and, in turn, determining incentive compensation based on goal achievement — can be a daunting, ephemeral task. Here’s how one health care system has successfully connected all the dots.

Our understanding of effective governance in hospitals and health systems is growing. Several recent studies find that meeting certain benchmarks for board structure, composition, culture and evaluation practices has become a basic governance responsibility. These studies also call for heightened board engagement in governance oversight responsibilities.

Given the sweeping changes in health care, forward-thinking hospitals, systems and medical centers are carefully evaluating board member succession and recruitment. The challenging environment in which these organizations operate requires strong, knowledgeable boards whose members have deep insights into the field and a fundamental understanding of business, management practices and how to compete in a highly competitive market.