Resource Library

Health care providers must draw lessons from the core capabilities of successful companies in the internet economy.

Corporate boards, across industry sectors, are increasingly being called upon to support management as the company responds to how innovative competitors “disrupt” their existing business model. Blockbuster, Borders and ESPN are prime examples of established companies that have been pulled into the financial undertow created by nimble disruptors.

Hospitals and systems must understand the threats posed by market disruptors and craft specific strategies to protect their missions.

The template is designed to help a hospital or health system develop profiles of disruptive competitors that are already in its service area (or are anticipated to enter its service area). An interactive MS Word document of this template with fields is available.

While your organization may strive to improve safety, patient experience, workforce engagement and clinical quality as discrete performance domains, your leadership — and your resources — may be convened around multiple strategies and action plans. Without a single strategy that aligns improvement efforts and acts on the interdependencies of vertical domains, siloed planning can undermine workforce coordination and sustainable change.

This webinar recording offers a different approach to new member orientation. You’ll hear about a set of action steps that can help your organization develop a conscious, ongoing orientation process – one that helps the entire board form a high-functioning team much faster as each new trustee comes on.

Webinar Board Meetings: How to Drive Effective Board Dynamics The format of a board agenda can either drive effective strategic discussion or can stifle it. Presbyterian Health Plan (PHP) in Albuquerque, NM, put together an ad hoc committee that redesigned its board meetings to allow more time for strategic topics, streamlined the consent agenda, moved to using a board portal and iPads and created a role for the vice chair to observe the interactions of board members and provide feedback on the effectiveness of the board dynamics.

Seven techniques can help support and strengthen your board's decision-making processes.

This webinar outlines key questions for boards to ask and approaches to take to clarify an explicit role and job description for the board chair.

Looking for tips to create – and keep – the board of your dreams? Wondering if that dream can ever become a reality? Curious to know how you can possibly create the board of your dreams if your board members are appointed or placed on your board rather than elected by current directors?

Webinar Making Effective Decisions in Times of Uncertainty and Change: What Boards Need to Know  

Clarifying accountabilities between management and governance is essential for high performance. Discover best-practice governance principles in this article.

By Stephen Mansfield While a clear, bright line between the roles of governance and management does not exist for every issue that boards and organizational leaders must address, defining the relative roles of boards, leaders and managers can enhance governance effectiveness and working relationships.

Topics: Using Competencies in Trustee Selection, Competency-Based Trustee Selection in Action, Using Competencies to Transform Governance

These are exciting and challenging times for board members of not-for-profit health care organizations. The main driver of this state of affairs is a field-wide transformation that promises to result in better quality, higher value, and population health improvement. Most board members see this as a positive move for their organization and community, since their missions often speak to the need to improve the health of the communities they serve.

The following is intended to be an example that boards should adapt to meet their individual needs.

The following is intended to be an example that boards should adapt to meet their individual needs. Effective governance depends on the right mixture of skills, experience, personal qualities and diversity among the members of the hospital board.

This report shares findings from a study of governing physician organizations in developing systems of care. The study is among the first to explore this work from the perspective of physicians, who talk candidly about issues and challenges and provide insights about the evolution of physician involvement in governance and leadership at a historic moment of change in health care.

“No battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy,” goes a military saying, expressed in recent years by Colin Powell. The expression is worth remembering as hospitals and health systems embrace bold strategies to participate in the industry-wide economic shift from rewarding volume to holding providers accountable for the value they deliver.

New research on board structures, practices and culture in large nonprofit systems provides insight into how boards and CEOs are addressing the challenges of change — and changing the way they govern in the process. This workbook explores several themes emerging from review of system documents and 71 on-site interviews with CEOs and senior board leaders in 14 of the country’s 15 largest nonprofit health care organizations.