UPDATES FROM RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

The Impact of Physician Employment on Quality and Productivity

While the uncertainty of healthcare reform makes it difficult to create long-term and definitive predictions, hospitals and health systems already know that they need to improve quality, productivity, and efficiency. Any new payment system or methodology for organizing care is bound to focus on improving quality, productivity, and efficiency; on rewarding institutions that can demonstrate exceptional performance; and on penalizing those that cannot.

In this article, Eric D. Lister, M.D., Managing Director, Ki Associates, describes opportunities to improve quality, productivity, and efficiency through physician alignment, with a focus on employment as an increasingly important vehicle for alignment.

Investing Capital in Uncertain Times: The Board's Role

Today’s new economic realities challenge board members with difficult questions about what to do next. This is a time that requires openness to new, sometimes radical ideas about the future of hospitals and healthcare in general, the discipline to demand improved short-term operating performance when many in the organization feel that there is nothing left to cut, the willingness to be patient until a variety of scenarios have been examined and your strategic plan reexamined, and the need to be exceptionally clear about your organization’s risk preference.

Marian C. Jennings and Amy B. Hughes of M. Jennings Consulting, Inc. outline short-term approaches to address the capital crisis and help focus your organization on taking steps to rebuild financial strength and creditworthiness and prepare for a more systematic, long-term strategic financial planning process.

Announcing New Webinar Series from The Governance Institute

This fall, a new Webinar series brings national healthcare governance experts directly to your desktop. Join us as The Governance Institute's Advisors present timely and valuable content that will help shape the conversations in your boardroom. Each 60-minute program will inlude a live question and answer session.

OCTOBER WEBINAR
Monday, October 12, 2009 2:00 p.m. Eastern/11:00 a.m. Pacific
Register today!

Physician–Hospital Alignment: Successful Strategies and Board Leadership
Aligning with physicians is now a top priority for hospitals. Rapid strategic change is being driven by dynamic shifts in financial incentives, the competitive marketplace, quality measurement, proposed health reform, lifestyle concerns, and a changing social compact between hospitals and physicians.

Many hospitals see that their relationships with physicians have reached a tipping point. As a result, new models are emerging to successfully align interests. Hospital boards and senior management must have a solid understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by this evolving strategic issue.

This Webinar will:

• Explore the dynamics that make physician–hospital alignment imperative
• Identify the most successful models for physician–hospital alignment—and ways to assess which model(s) is/are most likely to win your physicians’ support and succeed
• Explain the board’s role in development of an alignment strategy
• Describe practical approaches for building communications, trust, and engagement in leadership with and by aligned physicians

Presented by The Governance Institute, Barry S. Bader, president, Bader & Associates, Inc. and Governance Institute Advisor, and John M. Harris, principal, DGA Partners.

Click Here to register or call (877) 712-8778 for more information.

November topic:
The Board’s Role in Assuring Institutional Integrity presented by Governance Institute Advisor Pamela R. Knecht, president of ACCORD LIMITED. Registration information coming soon.

CONFERENCE CONTENT AND UPDATES

Advancing Today’s Medical Leaders: Fall Conference at The Breakers October 4–6, 2009 With CMO & VPMA Summit, October 3, 2009 This unique, three-day conference for physician leaders includes a one-day summit for CMOs and VPMAs. Join your colleagues in Palm Beach, Florida for a program that will cover: The changing role of hospital-based physician executives The growth of employed physicians and how this is affecting the organized medical staff The present and future of healthcare: an economic perspective Credentialing, privileging, and the determination of clinical competence Is it safe? How physicians can avoid legal landmines

Speakers include Stephen K. Klasko, M.D., M.B.A., Todd Sagin, M.D., J.D., Martin B. Buser, M.P.H., FACHE, Albert L. Fritz, M.H.A, and Nathan S. Kaufman.

Click here to view the complete program and register for the conference.

October Leadership Conference at The Greenbrier
October 18-21, 2009

Join your colleagues in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia for an exceptional Fall program. Speakers include:

• Brandon Edwards, president & COO, DAVIES Public Affairs, on improving the community’s perception of hospitals
• Eric D. Lister, M.D., managing director, Ki Associates, on hospitals and physicians in 2015
• J. Mark Waxman, Esq., partner, Foley & Lardner, LLP, on mergers, acquisitions, & collaborations
• Brian J. Silverstein, M.D., senior vice president, The Camden Group, on key questions and actions for setting strategic direction
• Richard L. Buck, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM, independent healthcare strategist, on healthcare reform: where we are now and what it all means

Many more speakers are on the agenda, in addition to orientation sessions for both new and experienced board members. Click here to view the complete program and register for the conference.

Register early for a discounted price. Members, remember to redeem your free conference passes.

Visit www.governanceinstitute.com/calendar for program details and registration for 2009 conferences.

The Governance Institute thanks Premier Partners Broadlane® and Kaufman, Hall & Associates, Inc. for their continuing support of excellence in healthcare governance.