The Center for Healthcare Governance is pleased to announce plans for a new initiative to identify core competencies for hospital and health care trustees. The competencies will be used as the basis for trustee skills and educational development.

The effort, to be conducted in partnership with the Health Research & Educational Trust, is being made possible through an unrestricted educational grant from Hospira, Inc, a global specialty pharmaceutical and medication delivery company. A Blue Ribbon Panel of experts, selected by the Center’s National Board of Advisors, will be convened. Richard de Filippi, a trustee at the Cambridge Health Alliance, will serve as chair of the panel, which will include hospital and health care trustees and CEOs, as well as experts in the field of governance and leadership.

The panel will complete its work by December 2008, building on the work of the Center’s first Blue Ribbon Panel on Effective Practices for Healthcare Governance, conducted in 2007 to examine critical issues facing health care boards and practices that lead to exceptional governance, as well as to provide specific recommendations and sample tools and resources to implement them. The results of the 2008 study will be co-presented by the panel and Hospira at the Center's 2009 Fall and Winter symposia.

Visit the Center Web site for updates on the status of the intiative, as well as for new information on research and upcoming educational events.

Read the Press Release

Read about the 2007 Blue Ribbon Panel Report

Download 2007 Blue Ribbon Panel Tools

• Quality Curriculum
  for Trustees (NEW)
• Blue Ribbon Panel on Health Care Governance
• Collaborative
  Leadership Tools
• Governance Assessment
• Resource Repository
• Governance Tools
• Governance Research
• Speakers Express
• Qualified Consultants
• Center Voices Columns
• Trustee Workbooks
• Center Monographs

Center Web site

Quality Curriculum for Hospital and Health Care Trustees

More Information

Be on the lookout for two new Center publications in the upcoming issue of Trustee magazine. The April issue will include a Center Voices column on modernizing board communications, as well as a new Trustee Workbook on governance and hospital performance improvement.

April’s Center Voices column on modernizing board communications is authored by Joe Ruck, CEO of Center member BoardVantage, a provider of secure, hosted board portals. In addition to discussing the increasing use of electronic communication by hospitals and their boards, the column highlights the advantages of adopting a board portal for trustee communications (including easy access to information, secure email capability, reduced risk of litigation and ability to store and retrieve historical documents) and features an account of one hospital’s success in streamlining delivery and access to board meeting agendas and supporting materials.

The Center’s second Trustee Workbook of the year is co-authored by Center faculty and consultants Mary Totten and Jamie Orlikoff, health care executive Kathy McDonagh, and Jean Chenoweth, health care researcher and senior vice president for Thomson Healthcare Performance Improvement and the 100 Top Hospitals Programs. The workbook, which focuses on governance and hospital performance improvement, summarizes qualitative research interviews with hospital CEOs and board chairs in five organizations, including community and rural hospitals, system members and academic medical centers. The workbook discusses how governance responsibilities, such as board self-evaluation and CEO evaluation are conducted, and how performance improvement is monitored and overseen by these organizations and their boards. The workbook also addresses aspects of board culture, such as the political and strategic nature of the board, and their implications for the board’s impact on hospital performance improvement.

Reminder: You can access archived Center Voices and Trustee Workbooks, via the Center’s Web site, under the Publicatons menu!

Join your colleagues April 6-9 in Washington, D.C., at the 2008 AHA Annual Membership Meeting. This year's agenda includes several sessions designed specifically for hospital trustees. Tickets for each event are $35 per person, with the package of three sessions plus the trustee breakfast available for $125.

Session Topics

• Success in Succession Management: Preparing the Next Generation of Leaders
  V. James Fiorenzo, RPh, MBA, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Hamot Medical Center, Erie, PA and Eric Hanson, Executive Consultant, Development Dimensions International, Pittsburgh, PA
  
  
• The Board's Role in Quality and Patient Safety: Practical Tools , Tactics, and Techniques The Role of the Health Care Trustee
  James E. Orlikoff, President, Orlikoff & Associates, Inc., and Senior Consultant, Center for Healthcare Governance, Chicago, IL
  
  
• Trustee Leadership Breakfast National Political Update
  Amy Walter, Editor in Chief, The Hotline, Washington, DC
  
  
• The Gremlins of Governance: What Keeps Me Awake at Night?
  Richard Chait, Research Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA

More Information and Session Descriptions

The Center for Healthcare Governance wants members to be as connected as possible to our governance consultants. Being able to ask questions online and receive responses back quickly will ensure you'll find the answers and resources to help you achieve excellence in health care governance.

Please fill out the Center's Ask the Governance Expert online form with your specific question or request, and you will be contacted within 24 hours with a reply. In addition, please feel free to use this form to submit feedback about the Center's services so that we can better serve you.

Please note that this is a member-only resource. Only submissions by Center members will be answered.

The Center for Healthcare Governance developed Speakers Express to help make the high-caliber speakers and presenters found at its national symposia and regional workshops available to organizations throughout the country. Our speakers are proven professionals who are viewed as the "go-to" leaders in their respective fields of expertise, customizing their presentations to fit the unique needs of each organization.

The Center for Healthcare Governance introduces Emily Friedman, an independent writer, lecturer, and health policy and ethics analyst based in Chicago, who is most noted for her work in health policy, health care trends, health insurance and managed care, the social ethics of health care, health care for the underserved, health care history, population demographics, and the relationship of the public with the health care system. Learn more about Emily Friedman below:

Emily Friedman Speaker Bio Presentation Topics

More Information on the Center's Speakers Express

To view archived editions of the Center's bi-weekly email Center News & Updates, click here.