Measuring Board Impact on Hospital Finance and Quality

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.