For decades, healthcare has been a complicated and highly regulated industry. Up to 2013, it was possible for senior leaders and the boards that oversee them to rely on Recommended Site an industry that had stability and predictability.

But that all changed with advent of an unprecedented shift in reimbursement and changes in standards for quality and safety for patients, which are reshaping how healthcare organizations are operating to remain competitive. These changes have created new challenges for healthcare boards.

In the course of our research, we interviewed opinion leaders who mentioned three types of behaviours that healthcare boards that they believed were particularly significant:

A strong board must insist that the right information is made available. It should emphasize the importance of safety and quality goals and provide trustees with realistic targets. This requires using National Quality Forum-endorsed measures and creating a robust benchmarking plan which identifies the top performers and can understand the processes they employ. The aim should be to empower trustees to challenge every hospital and system to improve their quality and reduce medical errors.

The board must also seek the help of trustees who are experts in the field of quality and safety (e.g. high reliability, Six Sigma) to serve as chairmen and members of the board’s quality committee. The ideal is for these individuals to be drawn from other industries like nuclear power or aviation. This will ensure that the board has a specialist on hand to guide and support the CEO and other employees in setting and achieving the right goals and ensuring that the healthcare leadership is doing all it can to enhance the performance.