Board Composition and Selection

The role of a health care organization trustee gets more complicated and more sophisticated every day. Pressures are increasing simultaneously for higher quality, lower cost, more transparency and accountability, and use of evolving and evermore expensive technology.
As health care organizations become more complex and diverse, their governance requires individuals with a range of knowledge, skills and behaviors that can address the needs and challenges of these evolving enterprises. As their organizations mature, effective boards update how their members are…
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.
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.”
In many ways, women are on the front line in health care — as consumers, employees and family caretakers. They possess firsthand knowledge of community health issues and needs. They can bring an informed perspective to health care and other community organizations about where to focus resources to…
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…
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...
Most boards I know were built by recruiting business leaders, physicians and clergy, and it’s important to have broad community representation among trustees. Increasingly, however, boards are recruiting new members by using a skills-based approach aligned with the organization’s strategic needs,…
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…
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…