Resource Library

In 2003, Princeton HealthCare System initiated a highly participative and comprehensive long-range strategic planning process. Among the participants were trustees, donors, physicians, elected officials, influential community members, and patients and their families, as well as administrators and clinical and service staff members. 

This research report examines the structures, practices, and cultures of community health system boards and compares them to several benchmarks of good governance. Its conclusions and recommendations get down to straightforward practical measures that a hospital or health system board can implement. Among others, they include blueprints for evaluation of the board’s strategic and bread-and-butter performance, plus review of membership composition. Well-noted are recommendations for essential board development and attention to community benefits.

The 2007 report of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Health Care Governance focused on building a foundation for exceptional governance and included several tools and practices to help boards move from good to great performance.

This monograph covers the basics of strategic planning, including definitions of common terms, a description of the planning process and the characteristics of successful plans. It describes the board’s role in planning, including why plans fail, common weaknesses and how boards can support successful plan implementation.

For effective oversight, boards must engage at three levels: see, own and solve.

A board committed to continuous improvement realizes that the value of assessing its performance goes beyond meeting Joint Commission or other external requirements. It knows that regular self-evaluation gives it the information needed to understand and build on its strengths and identify and minimize its weaknesses.

Mapping the values and concerns of stakeholders against company strategy is one way to show where stakeholder concerns are aligned with current strategy and to create awareness of where risk or reward exist.

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

Effective board leadership transitions can be facilitated by institutionalizing basic tools and processes. These include setting term limits for those in board leadership positions, periodic evaluations based on clear job descriptions and assessment of potential barriers to successful CEO relationships.

Working committees are the engine that powers effective boards. As their responsibilities increase, boards depend on their committees to engage in careful analysis and oversight of the organizationʼs performance plus a thorough vetting of recommendations before they are submitted to the full board. When committees do their job well and make concise reports to the board, they free up time to use full board meetings for education and open discussion on important strategic and policy issues.

The Audit and Corporate Compliance Committee recommends policies and processes to the board related to...

Almost all hospitals face the issue of not having enough money to accomplish everything they would like to. So how does the board pick among winning ideas when it can’t afford them all? The resources needed to support operations and implement strategic initiatives can far surpass those available.

SAMPLE COMMITTEE CHARTER: EXECUTIVE EVALUATION AND COMPENSATION COMMITTEE Overall Roles and Responsibilities

Elaine Zablocki found that recruiting more minorities and women to the board takes new ways of thinking about, recruiting and orienting directors.

“What is the difference between governance and management?” is by far the question that not-for-profit executives and directors ask most often. Effective boards understand the difference between governing and managing; dysfunctional boards do not.

Hospital boards are beginning to take best practice cues from their corporate counterparts and modernize their communication methods by adopting board portals. A board portal is a secure “host”— i.e., an online storage system for managing trustee communications.

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