There are 4 common sources of
misunderstandings
between CEOs and trustees.
To find out what they are, and how to begin to address them, check out “Clarifying Expectations: A First Step in Developing Truly Effective Relationships Between CEOs and Trustees,” available from the Center for Healthcare Governance. |
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Effective boards evaluate their performance and require member accountability, but it’s not uncommon for boards that conduct full board evaluations to fail to develop action plans to improve performance.
The Governance Assessment Program is offered by the Center for Healthcare Governance, and a Workbook on “Connecting Governance Culture and Hospital Performance Improvement” was included in the April 2008 issue of Trustee magazine. |
There are 4 factors that most affect how, and how well, boards perform their work: governance structure, composition, infrastructure and climate/culture.
In an Introduction & Overview to its Resource Repository, the Center for Healthcare
Governance defines how these four factors fit together. The available resources can help you address all four.
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Quality improvement and patient safety should be an ongoing priority item for discussions that involve board members, senior management and medical staff.
On the AHA’s Quality Center Web site, CEOs and boards can find an extensive Opportunity Assessment that will help you think about what you are doing to address quality improvement in your institution. The Center for Healthcare Governance also offers an extensive Quality Curriculum program. |
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The new IRS Form 990 asks whether an organization’s process for determining the compensation of top management officials, officers and key employees includes: (1) a review and approval by independent persons; (2) compensation comparability data; and (3) written records of the deliberations and conclusions of compensation decisions.
For more information that hospital trustees should know about the new Form 990, you can read “IRS Focus on Transparency,” a summary available on the AHA’s Trustee & Governance Resources Web site.
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There are 3 legal fiduciary duties required of directors of nonprofit,
501(c)(3) corporations: loyalty, care and obedience. Directors of health care organizations are individually/collectively accountable for being loyal, careful and obedient, and are liable if they are not.
A “Best Practice Guideline on Board Legal Fiduciary Duties” is available for members of the Center for Healthcare Governance, along with many other tools for CEOs and trustees. |
There are at least 8 different ways health care trustees can be involved with and provide input to AHA and its policy development and advocacy.
These range from formal positions in groups like the Trustee Leadership Network and the Regional Policy Boards to ad hoc committees and issue discussion calls. For more information, check out the Member Center on www.aha.org.
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Smaller hospitals and those in rural communities are more likely to rely on retired or semiretired individuals to serve on their boards than are urban and suburban organizations.
More data on the demographics of hospital boards are available from the Health Research & Educational Trust, which works with the Center for Healthcare Governance to do periodic surveys of the field on critical topics. All survey results are available online. |
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Tools and Templates
