By working together in these cases, Alliance partners were able to provide clients with high quality services that responded to every aspect of their situations.
Assessing Governance for Health System Board
Client Profile: Large Southeast health system with a parent board for the system and tertiary care hospital, and subsidiary boards for rural hospitals, a foundation, and for-profit enterprises
Project Type: Comprehensive governance assessment and enhancement
Challenge: Help a new CEO and a visionary, committed board to take a fresh look at governance structure and practices. The board wanted to ensure that it was following nationally recommended governance practices and exercising effective strategic leadership and fiduciary oversight.
Our Solution and Results: Bader & Associates and ACCORD Limited teamed on this project. We reviewed a full range of board policies and documents, interviewed every corporate director and key leaders in management and subsidiaries, and brought our findings and recommendations to several meetings with the Governance Committee and full board.
Some recommendations involved a shift from the traditional culture. The consultants helped educate directors about rising external governance standards and helped craft pragmatic solutions.
As a result, the board adopted stronger policies to demonstrate board independence, clarified the parent board’s reserved powers over the foundation and other subsidiaries, strengthened its oversight of quality and patient safety, and initiated a process to enhance board-medical staff communications.
Strategic Decisions for Home Care And Hospice Organization in New England
Client Profile: Home health and hospice organization that included one of only two inpatient hospices in the state
Project Type: Board self assessment and development retreat leading to a strategic planning process
Challenge: To help the board of this respected but financially challenged organization assess and improve its effectiveness. Subsequently, to help the board and management make critical decisions about the organization’s future.
Our Solution and Results: Initially, Bader & Associates was engaged to conduct a board retreat to educate directors in good governance practices and adopt a board development plan to address improvement opportunities. We met with the Governance Committee, reviewed background documents, and designed and administered a self assessment questionnaire. During candid discussion at the retreat it became clear the board was gridlocked over questions of its strategic future and lacked a means of addressing them.
As part of preparing a Board Development Plan, we helped directors organize a board-led strategic planning process. DGA Partners was engaged to conduct leadership interviews, analyze key financial and market data, and develop a strategic and financial analysis of four future scenarios. DGA Partners then facilitated a second board retreat to examine the options, choose a desired scenario, and prepare to engage in discussions with a desired strategic partner to develop a new facility.
Exploring Collaborative Arrangements
Among Three Community Hospitals
Client Profile: Three Michigan hospitals in close proximity to one another
Project Type: Collaborative arrangement facilitation
Challenge: To determine if three competing hospitals could form a local health system through the formation of a joint operating agreement, merger, or some other structural arrangement
Our Solution and Results: ACCORD was retained by the three hospitals to serve as a neutral facilitator of the deliberations of the three boards and CEOs. We structured the discussion process, including the formation of a Task Force consisting of the CEOs and board leaders from each organization; conducted individual interviews with the Task Force members to gauge the feasibility of the undertaking; reviewed relevant documents; provided advice on communications; and educated the Task Force members on the range of options available to the three hospitals.
We also recommended retaining DGA Partners to conduct a “base case” study to determine the likely financial impact if the parties were to not come together in some arrangement.
We facilitated several meetings of the Task Force to explore the information listed above, and reached the conclusion that a merger was the most desirable collaborative model, in terms of meeting the healthcare needs of the community and ensuring financial stability for the three organizations.
Unknown to us at the time, one of the three hospitals violated its agreement not to discuss opportunities with other providers in the region and pulled out of discussions at the last minute. The remaining two hospitals moved forward with immediate plans for integration of clinical services and other collaborative efforts. They determined that a full merger was no longer the optimal arrangement for them.
|
