Newer board members will learn how to optimize their effectiveness in this workshop. Topics include an overview of fiduciary duties, roles, and responsibilities in an era of heightened accountability and transparency. Case studies and discussion of the board’s role in quality, planning, physician relationships, finance, and ethics will be featured.

Recent Research from The Governance Institute has isolated a series of essential structures and behaviors of high-performing hospital and health system boards. Dr. Dolan will discuss how your organization can best explore and apply these strategies.

This advanced course for physician leaders covers a myriad of challenges such as credentialing, medical staff management, cultural enhancement, structure and bylaws, quality, and communication. Management and board members are welcome.

Healthcare organizations face growing concerns about the cost and quality of the services they provide. Drawing on experiences and models from inside and outside the healthcare industry, this session will explore ways leaders can align their organizations to move beyond incremental improvement to significant improvements in efficiency, quality, and patient safety.

Healthcare executives are bombarded with “magic bullets” that promise to improve strategic performance. Experience has shown that many of these strategies are misguided. Mr. Kaufman will analyze historical and current trends to provide a likely future scenario.

Top hospitals have discipline and accountability, and never lose focus on key goals. Mr. Kaufman will discuss how to become a peak-performing organization by sharing best practices and fielding questions from participants.

The pace of change in healthcare is causing boards to ask more of themselves and from their senior executive teams. Using case studies, Dr. O’Brien will present hierarchy-breaking leadership and decision-making approaches that more effectively leverage the intelligence and viewpoints of board members and the executive team.

The medical staff–board relationship is essential for promoting organizational performance and maintaining productivity. This session will define the board’s and medical staff’s roles and responsibilities in order to promote healthy interaction between the two

One of the biggest challenges for an organization is recruitment and retention of talented employees. One of the most effective tools to combat turnover is a strong corporate culture that creates a compelling place to work. Ms. Neuhauser will give you practical, down-to-earth advice about how to build a high-retention workplace culture.

This presentation is based on Ms. Neuhauser’s book, Tribal Warfare in Organizations, which approaches turf battles between departmental and professional groups in organizations with humor. Ms. Neuhauser will offer practical tips on the do’s and don’ts of “tribal communication” with the aim to produce more effective collaboration.

Changes in consumer demand, technology advances, design innovations, and payer assertiveness are prompting hospitals to find new types of inpatient and ambulatory care models. Mr. Seymour will share insights from recent research in Europe, Asia, and North America on the hospital of the future. Explore expectations from the patient, visitor, employee, payer, and physician perspectives.

Eventually, nearly every CEO ends up on the “wrong” side of a medical staff issue, whether it’s exclusive contracting, medical staff bylaws, a tough disciplinary issue, or employment of physicians to fill critical patient care needs. Tested principles will assist in avoiding crises and managing them when they do occur. Mr. Greeley and Dr. Sagin will explore these issues in detail, with participant interaction and sharing.

Today, boards must deal with overseeing quality in compliance with strict legal and regulatory expectations. Mr. Peters will identify and discuss “real world” obstacles confronting boards in performing this critical fiduciary responsibility, and provide proactive, operational solutions designed to enable boards to achieve their quality oversight mandate.

This session will look at rating agency and investor views of the healthcare sector, credit and market issues triggered by sub-prime mortgage losses, and what it all means for not-for-profit hospitals and health systems.

Mr. Peters will provide collaborative strategies to avoid and overcome troubling flashpoints affecting the medical staff, board, and management, including declining provider reimbursement, increasing professional liability insurance premiums, enhanced physician–hospital competition, and the healthcare regulatory environment.

Conflicts of interest are a fact of life for today’s healthcare institutions. High-integrity organizations are set apart because of transparent management. Attendees will learn how to instill a strong ethical culture and implement effective policies and processes to proactively address board, executive, and medical staff conflicts of interest. Hear case studies of both effective and ineffective approaches to these critical issues.

Expanding on the earlier discussion of recent market volatility, Mr. Irwin will examine the emerging forces in the healthcare industry that will play a significant role in determining capital access for not-for-profit providers. Like a good soap opera, there are plenty of twists and turns as the drama continues to evolve during this presidential election year.

Current trends in hospital–physician relations are once again leading toward tighter integration. This session will look at current models of physician integration and acquisition as a means of increasing the strength of the hospital.

Mr. Seymour will present a strategic framework for integrating the topics presented at this conference and leave attendees with several key takeaways to put to work in their organizations.