Resource Library

The sample dashboards that follow provide examples for a multihospital system as well as a single community hospital.

Health care boards that take a broader view of “quality” and incorporate measures that reflect this understanding are better able to assess performance in the right areas.

The patient experience reflects the organization’s culture. The board must foster a culture that supports employees and providers to deliver the best possible experience time after time.

Up-to-date, clearly written and concisely constructed bylaws can support oversight of current performance and enable an organization to nimbly confront challenges to its viability.

Education, preparation and collegiality can empower physician and lay member trustees to make fair and thoroughly vetted decisions.

Health systems that take the time to assess the role and value of subsidiary boards, and invest in educating their members, can maintain a key community connection that might otherwise be diminished or lost.

The best boards revisit their committee structures, responsibilities and information flow to ensure detailed oversight while devoting more time to strategic and policy issues.

For effective cultural stewardship, boards need to promote behavioral expectations for patient care and make sure that espoused values and norms are respected throughout the organization.

Millennials use the health care system in a unique way. Trustees must be attentive to their views and recruit them to the board for its long-term sustainability.

Hospitals and health systems are finding a range of ways to integrate behavioral and physical care in a primary care clinic, thereby improving patient outcomes and lowering costs.

Trustees should take steps to understand and reduce the risk of large-scale data breaches.

The health care field is changing. Hospitals are partnering with other health care providers and experimenting with new ways to create centers for excellence, as well as better integrate care within the community. By finding non-traditional ways to move care into communities, hospitals become more accountable and patients can experience improved wellness, expanded services and access to even better quality care. These activities can also involve mergers and acquisitions. These changes can affect areas of the organization responsible for advancing philanthropy.

In today’s environment of change and transformation, some nonprofit hospitals and health systems are considering the possibility of selling to for-profit providers. A central concern for boards engaged in strategic deliberations about a potential sale is preserving the charitable mission, values and legacy of their nonprofit health care organization.

Alignment between the health care organization's strategic priorities and charitable funding priorities is essential to maximize the impact of donor dollars. However, many organizations fail to secure a shared vision, so philanthropy is used to advance low value priorities or development officers are left to de facto set hospital strategy.

As the foundation board considers the creation of a strategic plan to guide the health care foundation, there are several priorities and moving pieces to consider across the strategic planning journey.

Setting strategic direction is a basic governance role of the foundation board. The board is responsible for determining the mission, vision and values that are the bedrock of the organization’s strategic framework. The board represents stakeholder interests, so it serves a valuable role in sharing community perspectives and expectations to guide planning. The board must ensure the organization’s goals position it to fulfill the organizational mission and to advance its vision.

While more than 90% of hospitals agree or strongly agree population health is aligned with their mission, only 19% of health care leaders strongly agree they possess the financial resources available to support population health.

The VP of Philanthropy’s overarching responsibility is to promote philanthropic investment by donor partners in the health care organization in order to advance the mission. However, the role encompasses far more. Together with the foundation board and health care CEO, this individual works with internal and external constituencies to build a culture of philanthropy that goes beyond transactional fundraising to build lasting, fruitful relationships rooted in a shared vision.

Foundation board members can strengthen their philanthropy efforts by understanding the growing role of the CEO in order to develop a productive and proactive working relationship.

Health care is in a period of transformation as reimbursement  and delivery systems make the leap from payment based on volume to payment based on value. Philanthropy is playing a role in this transformation.