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Community leaders once considered it an honor to serve on the boards of their local not-for-profit hospitals. But today, as board members are required to assume a more proactive role, the community leaders you need to attract to your board may feel overwhelmed by the responsibility--and the enormity of the task they face.
As a result, attracting and keeping board members for not-for-profit community hospital boards has become more challenging than ever before.
Board members are increasingly conscious of their heightened fiduciary responsibilities. With hospitals in many communities facing serious financial difficulties, board members know they inevitably will be forced to make and answer for difficult decisions--decisions that affect their relatives, friends, neighbors and community.
The complex health care environment increases the learning curve for board members, making board service an unusually difficult and complex commitment. Today's board members find themselves dealing with such complicated regulatory requirements as those mandated by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997(BBA '97), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 (BIPA'00).
Life in other areas has become more complex, leaving less time for people who are obvious choices for board membership--successful business people and professionals with demanding careers-- to devote the time and energy required to serving on your hospital board.
The top executives who are the best prospects for board membership may already work 50 to 60 hours a week. Since the 1980s, when America downsized, employers have expected more from their top managers. As a result, your best prospects for board membership have barely enough time for their families.
They will think long and hard before agreeing to make a 20-- to 30-hour per month commitment to serve on your board.
Rising to the Challenge
Hospital management can rise to meet this challenge in a number of ways. One of the most important is to take a critical approach to recruiting board members to ensure a proper mix of professional and personal skills and aptitudes. This means the hospital management team and current board members must spend more time interviewing new board candidates to ensure that they:
* Think strategically
* Employ strong people and manage them effectively
* Participate in meetings