A Seat at the Power Table: The Physician’s Role on the Hospital Board
Overview: Today’s health care organization boards face unprecedented challenges in the areas of quality, care delivery, financing, physician relations, and information technology (seeFigure1). More often than not, trustees seek counsel from members who are successful corporate and civic leaders and philanthropists and activists who draw on their personal and professional achievements to help guide and define health care services in communities across America. Indeed, it is predominantly the board’s business dealers—and not its patient healers—who are reshaping the delivery of health care today.
But as guardians of patient and community health, physicians in board rooms across America maybe in the best position, if not the driver’s seat, to articulate and advance clinical excellence. They bring to the table their unique vantage point, skill set and understanding of process and protocols to help ensure that hospitals embrace and facilitate a mission of health, healing and access for all.
Figure 1: Today’s Challenges for Hospital Boards of Trustees
Growing consumer demand for information and accountability fueled by the Internet, consumer driven health care and the publication of quality and pricing information by payers
Growing demands from patients and payers for improved quality and safety
The effect of the Baby Boomer age wave on health care financing and delivery
Growth of complementary and alternative medicine
Technologic innovation in care and delivery, such as telemedicine and robotic surgery
Treatment advances resulting from genomics and new drug treatment therapies
Increasing demand for inpatient and out patient services that’s train capacity and resources
Increasing costs to build needed infrastructure
Ever declining reimbursement
A continued nursing shortage and predicted physician shortage
Shifting relationships with physicians—from one of seeking cordial relations to one of market based collaboration
Unfunded federal mandates, such as HIPAA compliance
Cultural competence and sensitivities in delivering care to diverse populations
Proactively managing patients with chronic medical conditions
A Seat at the Power Table: The Physician’s Role on the Hospital Board