Resource Library

Hospital and health system boards and leadership can advance their understanding of population health and how population health management fits into organizational priorities by considering the following questions.

New board members need more than a briefing on their organization — and the role they play in it

Scorecards aren’t going away: consumers want help distinguishing one hospital from another, and these reports offer the promise of synthesizing complex information for worried patients.

Hospital and health system boards and leadership can advance their understanding of telehealth and how it fits into organizational priorities by considering the following questions.

This Conflicts of Interest and Documentation Policy (“Policy”) applies to all directors and officers of ....

As community leaders, trustees are a powerful voice for their hospitals or health systems when it comes to advocacy. They can offer legislators “real life” insights and perspectives into the challenges facing patients and community members in the hospital’s service area, as well as how legislation and regulation will affect the women and men who work every day to fulfill their hospitals promise of help, hope and healing.

The inspiring “Bridging Worlds” roadmap is just one of many resources SHSMD offers its members in healthcare planning, marketing, communications, physician relations, and business development.

Throughout my years of serving on boards, I typically have done so as an outside trustee, someone who brings knowledge about health care issues in general and about governance in particular, to the board table. Boards composed primarily of community members, as hospital boards traditionally have been, often incorporate outside trustees within their membership to bring a fresh, external perspective into board discussions.

Some 66 percent of U.S. hospitals are now part of health systems, according to 2016 survey data from the American Hospital Association. As systems continue to grow in scope and complexity, their governance often follows suit.

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.

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 have the greatest impact.