CHIBE Associate Director Dr. Amol Navathe wrote a guest essay for The New York Times on how community hospitals should prioritize their work for the common good instead of profits.
“How do we get hospitals to refocus on their communities rather than on profits? Through their boards of directors. Their role is to tell hospital executives what to focus on and prioritize. And you would think that focusing on the mission would be the top priority, though boards aren’t doing this consistently.
The key is getting boards to act in service of the mission. They need greater accountability. And that’s where lawmakers and policymakers can help, by finding ways to encourage or require boards to resist the growth interests common to organizations. Hospital systems, like living organisms, tend to put survival and proliferation above all else,” Dr. Navathe writes.