Governance

Developing a streamlined Hospital Board of Trustees is hard work. Hospitals are increasingly more complicated business organizations, thus making the governance job more complex and time consuming. In addition, community Board members often experience difficulty finding the time necessary to carry out their responsibilities.

In the wake of well-publicized corporate scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 set higher standards of performance for public companies and their Boards. Although not-for-profit hospitals are excluded from the provisions of the Act, many anticipate that they ultimately will be included.

These factors make it increasingly important for hospital Boards to be mission focused, structured for effective operations, and prepared to discharge their fiduciary responsibility. We work closely with Boards and senior management to accomplish these objectives by:

• Clearly defining the roles, duties and responsibilities of the Board, its officers and committees in effectively steering the organization toward the successful accomplishment of its mission
• Ensuring that all Board committees serve a useful function
• Making certain that the Board and its committees are right sized, meet on a scheduled basis, and are appropriately comprised for maximum effectiveness
• Checking that the Board is in compliance with existing and anticipated federal, state and local legislation
• Incorporating best practices from other institutions into the Board structure on an as-needed basis
• Identifying skills and performance expectations for Board members
• Clearly differentiating between Board and management responsibilities

As your governance advisors, we are committed to clear identification of executive priorities: the Board’s fiduciary responsibility with respect to the hospital’s mission and vision; core strategy and strategic priorities; long-range financial planning; quality performance standards; annual operating and capital budgets; compensation and benefits strategies; CEO performance evaluation, and other related issues.

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