Understanding Healthcare Governance Concerns for Hospitals and Organizations

A good governance system in healthcare organizations ensures that boards are responsible for improving operations, clinical staff processes, and financial performance. The board of directors and executive management oversee all aspects of corporate governance, including clinical governance, which involves patient care, clinical practice management, and daily administration.

With these responsibilities, it can be difficult for the whole governance team to align. This blog highlights common challenges in healthcare governance and how to manage them.  

Communicating with Large Boards

The healthcare industry consistently has the largest number of directors on its boards. With many departments, levels of leadership, and cross-functional areas of responsibility, a healthcare board’s size can become unwieldy. Communication lapses and uninformed members compromise the effectiveness of these large boards.

Board management software enables easy, concise, and transparent communication across the whole governance team through better collaboration, centralizing information, and enhanced meeting preparation for board members prepared for meetings.

David Goldsmith, who served on countless boards including John Muir Health’s board says, “Historically, board meetings were taken up with committee reports and repetition of what’s in the board package distributed before the meeting. But now we operate under the assumption they’ve read all that.” Implementing a hospital board portal software like Govenda means that all relevant information, including the board book, is readily available to all board members. Goldsmith continues, “I will expect that if you come, I assume you’ve read it, and if you have questions, you’ll pick up the phone and call the relevant executive before the meeting, get your questions answered, and be prepared to discuss strategy. Having said all that, it’s always a battle.”

Clinical and Corporate Governance: Separate and Linked

At first glance, corporate governance may seem unrelated to clinical governance. However, business tasks, such as accounting, finance, investment, HR, IT, facilities, and security, all fall under the corporate governance umbrella. These matters directly support patient care, practice processes, healthcare procedures, and other structures that healthcare organizations need to serve patients. 

Maintaining and improving the quality and safety of patient care is the goal of clinical governance, which holds healthcare organizations accountable to their stakeholders and the community they serve. This requires further corporate governance support in business performance, risk management, ethics, and compliance with laws and regulations.

Despite their own goals, a healthcare organization's clinical and corporate governance systems are inherently connected. Both must work in concert to ensure that healthcare organizations achieve their business goals, ensure the quality of service, and manage resources well. Healthcare organizations are expected to be profitable while still upholding ethical values.

Managing Risk in Healthcare Governance

One major risk management issue for modern healthcare organizations is the clinical transfer of electronic medical records (EMR), and whether current processes respect patient confidentiality and HIPAA rules. Improper practices for transferring sensitive healthcare information can negatively affect patient care, or lead to malpractice lawsuits and payer recovery audits.

Healthcare governance systems can best assess potential clinical risks when working together. Billing and compliance monitoring activities require a dual approach. Corporate governance focuses on regulatory and compliance risks, while clinical governance focuses on patient safety and EMR risks. Technology can integrate this information. Healthcare organizations should implement training programs to ensure that all employees understand their unique roles in governance and risk management, especially during times of transition.

Another crucial component of ongoing risk management in healthcare is establishing feedback loops among stakeholders. Clear lines of communication set the stage for continual improvement when corporate and clinical governance systems interface with each other, advancing the goal of the highest-quality possible outcomes for patients.

Board Management Software for Better Governance

The complexity of healthcare governance motivates organizations to invest in board management software to fulfill governance obligations and keep private matters confidential.

Healthcare organizations need solutions that bring the right stakeholders together to:

• Establish a shared understanding of each other’s objectives
• Align on incentives
• Prioritize board activities
• Successfully integrate their governance systems into one

Govenda connects the appropriate parties on one secure and centralized platform. Connecting board directors, executives, and risk management teams are effortless in Govenda. Granular permission settings allow different levels of access to safeguard your information while keeping your teams informed and connected.

Govenda is designed with healthcare governance in mind. It is the system that healthcare boards need to manage the issues of today, tomorrow, and all the transitions in between.

See Govenda in Action