John F. Gleason, Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences and Corporate Services practices, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in Modern Healthcare, in “Experts Praise Centralizing Health System Control,” by Tara Bannow. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
When it comes to health system governing boards, for the most part, experts agree: Less is more. It’s an important message for the hospital industry, which has been slow to shed its bureaucratic layers. …
Increasingly health systems—ever-striving to cut expenses, standardize quality and lower time spent making decisions—are dumping decentralized governance structures in favor of centralized ones where approvals pass through fewer hoops.
But it’s not an easy evolution. Convincing a hospital to join an organization is a delicate negotiation, one that often requires the promise that boards will not only remain intact, but in control. The real problems enter, experts say, when health systems are intentionally or unintentionally vague about the delegation of duties between parent and local boards.
“Virtually everyone I know of falls into that category,” said Jack Gleason, an attorney specializing in healthcare with the New York law firm Epstein Becker & Green. “This is not a secret sauce employed by one or two systems. This is very typically how it’s done.”
