Center for Healthcare Governance Monographs



Pay-for-Performance: A Guide for Hospital Trustees

Overview:
Pay-for-Performance:A Guide for Hospital Trustees is meant to serve as a primer on pay-for-performance (P4P) programs for hospital boards. Understanding the P4P programs emerging within the health care industry can be a challenging endeavor because many trustees are often unfamiliar with medical nomenclature, clinical quality measurement and patient safety events data. More importantly, board members generally rely on hospital management for guidance on the clinical quality and safety indicators that are part of the P4P programs they should be monitoring.

This publication is designed to inform and empower trustees to be more aware of and inquisitive about their hospital's quality of care and patient safety and to take an active role in helping to improve it. It explores:

 

  • the growth of the P4P movement,
  • typical components of P4P programs,
  • challenges in participating in them, and
  • best practices for board members to effectively understand and provide guidance for successful hospital involvement in P4P programs.

Lists of questions are included that trustees can ask to assess whether their hospital or health system is on the right track for effectively participating in P4P programs. The guide concludes with 10 tips that can help board members improve their oversight of this increasingly important aspect of hospital quality and safety efforts. Hospitals and their board members will find this publication useful as background information for new trustees and as a resource for board members serving on the board's quality committee or participating in hospital quality improvement efforts. It can also be used as background reading for a board education session or leadership retreat on quality and patient safety issues. While P4P programs are complex and evolving, one thing is clear-they are not going away.What is equally clear is that leadership at the board and most senior levels of hospitals and health systems will be critical not only to succeed in a world of P4P but to build the infrastructure for excelling with broader performance measurement systems, as well.

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