Healthcare Quarterly

 

Healthcare Quarterly, 25(1) April 2022: 28-33.doi:10.12927/hcq.2022.26810

Governance Issues

Measuring Board Impact on Hospital Finance and Quality     

Lewis Hooper

Abstract

Boards are a powerful resource in overseeing our health system. This resource is limited in the amount of available time; therefore, boards should be as productive as possible. Boards should focus their energy on tangible, measurable results. Using natural language processing tools and quantitative outcome measures allows us to measure the impact of board focus. This analysis finds no significant relationship between a higher focus on finance or quality as measured by the board minutes and organizational performance in finance or quality. Boards focus much more on finance than quality or any other focus area with no substantive difference in outcomes. The study indicates that, at least in Ontario, boards may need to revise their approach and allocation of time to these topics.

 

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    Comments

    Lewis Hooper wrote:

    Posted 2022/10/10 at 10:15 AM EDT

    This paper demonstrated that the high focus on finance at the board did not help improve financial performance and could be more related to the board mix than organizational needs. E.g. the experience that board members bring to the table drives increased financial focus at the board. An additional review has been done to examine that possibility.
    Of the 36 hospitals in that previous study, 24 include board Bios on their website. Analysis of the Bios and Minutes confirms a strong relationship between board mix and the board focus on Finance (p<0.014 and R^2 of 0.48). Specifically, a board’s focus on finance increases as more financial skills are added to the board. This is not unexpected but reinforces the idea that boards should look at their membership mix carefully and take a results-based approach to membership. More work is being done, and I hope to publish a paper analyzing the board skill mix and its relationship to board focus and outcomes in the future.

     

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