Donald W. Seymour, President, Don Seymour & Associates
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.

Thomas C. Dolan, Ph.D., FACHE, CAE, President & CEO, American College of Healthcare Executives
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.

Todd Sagin M.D., J.D., Independent Healthcare Consultant & Educator
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.

Peg C. Neuhauser, President, PCN Associates
Conflict is a normal occurrence in the life of any board. Ms. Neuhauser will provide practical tips and techniques for managing and resolving conflicts including conflict ground rules, strategies for neutralizing difficult people, and collaborative negotiating techniques for building consensus.

Nathan S. Kaufman, Managing Director, Kaufman Strategic Advisors
There is no evidence that universal healthcare, transparency, or consumer-directed healthcare will moderate the skyrocketing growth in healthcare spending. This presentation will focus on the economic drivers that are forcing government and private payers to begin phasing out the traditional fee-for-service method of payment, how these economic drivers will impact physicians and hospitals over time, and how to achieve peak performance in the future.

Nathan S. Kaufman
In this session, Mr. Kaufman will summarize imperative strategies required to achieve financial success, discuss the potential systemic effects of healthcare reform being considered by governmental and private payers, and how to effectively position for such reform considerations. Mr. Kaufman will also explain imperatives for successful sustainable relationships with physicians.

Donald W. Seymour
Everyone knows physicians are essential to hospital success and many prescriptions have been offered to increase alignment. Mr. Seymour will review five specific steps to improve relationships in the short and long term.

James A. Rice, Ph.D., FACHE, Vice Chairman, The Governance Institute
This interactive session will seek answers for such questions as: how can boards help create a culture that supports enhanced fundraising to support growing capital needs? How can the process of raising funds also fuel refined linkages to your community benefit initiatives? What are modern “dos and taboos” for effective philanthropy?

Marian C. Jennings, M.B.A., President, M. Jennings Consulting, Inc.
This session will explore the critical role the board plays in ensuring that the organization’s plan is strategic in nature and clear in its intent, that it appropriately balances risks and rewards, and is financially realistic and likely to enhance the organization’s long-term viability.

Marian C. Jennings, M.B.A.
Strategic planning is really resource allocation. Most plans result in a seemingly never-ending list of required investments. This interactive session will explore practical ways to ensure that the board exercises its stewardship responsibilities to allocate resources to the benefit of the community while enhancing the organization’s long-term financial strength.

Todd Sagin, M.D., J.D.
Tighter monitoring of physician performance has revealed a growing number of physicians with problematic clinical skills or unprofessional conduct. Yet undertaking corrective action can expose boards and medical staffs to significant liability from lawsuits by aggrieved physicians. This session will show boards how to steer their organization through the landmines in this highly litigious territory.

James A. Rice, Ph.D., FACHE
Hiring, supporting, and investing in the CEO is one of the central responsibilities of great boards. Dr. Rice will provide insights into recent recommended practices for high-performing boards. Participants will learn how to take a fresh approach to CEO performance planning, appraisal, and development.

Joseph S. Bujak, M.D., FACP, Vice President of Medical Affairs, Kootenai Medical Center
The historical covenant that governed the relationship between hospital and physician is no longer valid, due to changes in healthcare economics, technology, demographics, and a shift in hierarchy of values. Dr. Bujak will discuss the implications of these transformations and provide insight into how physician culture complicates efforts to improve patient safety and clinical quality.

Robin Locke Nagele, Esq., Partner, Health Law Group, Post & Schell, P.C.
In this era of fraud and abuse regulation, antitrust litigation, Form 990 scrutiny, and quality accountability, executives and board members are charged by the government and the public with many regulatory imperatives. This session will give board members tools to identify these areas of high legal risk and probing questions they need to ask their executive team.

Robin Locke Nagele, Esq.
The PSQIA, enacted in 2005 to promote aggressive reporting and analysis of patient safety/quality issues through comprehensive federal peer review protections, is now becoming a reality with final regulations anticipated by the end of the 2008. This session will provide specific guidance as to how hospitals may be able to turn the “promise” of PSQIA into reality.

Joseph S. Bujak, M.D., FACP
Healthcare organizations are beginning to pay physicians to help lead and manage organizational performance. Dr. Bujak will describe the internal and external barriers that confront physicians in their attempts to effectively lead and manage within healthcare organizations, and suggest specific approaches that will enhance their effectiveness.

Timothy Cotter, Managing Director, Sullivan Cotter, and Associates, Inc.
Mr. Cotter will discuss emerging healthcare executive compensation issues and what executives and the board can do in response by focusing on emerging recommended practices, proactive compliance strategies, and preparing for media attention.

Todd Sagin, M.D., J.D.
The rise of a patient safety movement has created the concept of “never events.” CMS and third-party payers have moved quickly to refuse payment for these occurrences and continually expand the definitions of impermissible events. This controversial trend has physicians angry, created new liabilities, and burdened hospitals. This session will fully explore how institutions may be affected.

Donald W. Seymour
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.