What Board Members Look for in Hospital CEOs

What Board Members Look for in Hospital CEOs The hiring decision for a hospital CEO job ultimately falls on the chairman and the board. What do board members look for? If you want the job, how do you make sure you community the right traits? Let's take a close look at the most important things board members want in a newly hired CEO. Upholding Vision and Ethics A hospital is a sacred place. Life and death decisions are made on a daily, hourly and minute to minute basis. Your job first and foremost as a CEO is to uphold the medical ethics of the hospital. Guide the vision for the hospital and keep the culture of the facility on track.

Planning and Utilization of Resources Managing a hospital is a juggling act of allocation. You're allocating scarce resources like physician time, hospital rooms, medication, in-demand specialists and so on. The goal is to get as much utilization out of the resources on hand as possible. Board members look for CEOs who can make more out of the resources the hospital already has.

Support Employee Education The medical field grows very quickly. The half-life of a doctor's knowledge gets shorter and shorter every year. Breakthrough discoveries in all fields happen on an almost annual basis. As CEO, it's your job to ensure that your employees keep up with and thrive in this fast changing environment. You'll be responsible for making sure your doctors and nurses are up to date on the latest medical procedures.

Regulatory and Disclosure Requirements It's no secret that the medical industry is a maze of black and red tape. Though the CEO often delegates regulatory responsibility to other departments, the buck ultimately stops with you. It's your job to make sure privacy requirements, confidentiality, self-disclosures, internal audits and other standards are adhered to. Many of these requirements need to be incorporated deep in the company culture, so it becomes a matter of habit.

Optimizing Financial Performance At the end of the day, your job as CEO is to make the hospital a profitable and successful business. Yes, a doctor's responsibility is first and foremost to his patients. Yet a CEO also has a fiduciary responsibility to the company and to shareholders. As CEO, you're the captain of the boat.