What Board Members Look for in Hospital CEOs

1. What Board Members Look for in Hospital CEOs
The hiring decision for a CEO ultimately falls on the chairman and the board. What do board members
look for? If you want the healthcare executive jobs, 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.