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Build your board's "knowledge capital" with our flexible and affordable governance education program options.
Consistent, coordinated and focused governance education is becoming increasingly important due to the growing complexity of the health care field and the increasing scrutiny of governance by lawmakers, regulators, the media, consumers and others.
The Walker Company’s KnowledgeWORKS™ is a combination of in-person educational programs and programs available on CD. Our CD programs offer a high-technology alternative to conventional education methods, minimizing costs and maximizing governance knowledge-building opportunities.
About KnowledgeWORKS™
KnowledgeWORKS™ is a governance education solution with two options: in-person and CD-based educational programs. Our live onsite programs include the use of  OptionWORKS™, our powerful yet easy-to-use handheld opinion “polling” technology. Topics include education about "Boardroom Basics," fundamental topics boards must be aware of; "Governance Insights," current and emerging issues and trends that impact hospital success; and "Leadership Perspectives," a unique look at various leadership factors that affect board and hospital performance. We also develop and present unique interactive governance learning games. For more information about our interactive learning games, click here.
Programs available on CD include an audiovisual presentation, and a discussion guide with detailed information on the program topic. To view programs currently available on CD, click here.
For more information about our onsite presentations, or purchasing a KnowledgeWORKS™ CD, please contact Larry Walker via email, or call 503-534-9461.
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About Governance InterACTIVE™
It’s a fact-people learn better and retain more when they’re engaged and involved as active participants in the presentation process. Interactive programs that involve audiences in learning are a welcome alternative to more typical “present and listen” style programs. When educational programs are fun, entertaining, thought-provoking and memorable, they create learning that lasts.
The Walker Company has presented programs to thousands of hospital trustees, medical staff leaders and executives. We have developed unique Governance InterACTIVE™ programs designed to engage and stimulate audiences in ways that typical educational programs cannot. By including the audience as active “players” in the programs, participants are more attentive, they listen more carefully, and they retain more of what they learn.
Technology Tools to Leverage Learning
Our Governance InterACTIVE™ programs use OptionWORKS™, enabling meeting participants to provide anonymous and instantaneous feedback on specific topics or issues, and see the immediate results of their viewpoints and those of their colleagues. OptionWORKS™ combines a custom PowerPoint® application with wireless handheld response cards to improve group participation, communication, energy, and focus. OptionWORKS™ stimulates increased discussion, communication and understanding of issues, and helps achieve the client’s desired meeting outcomes efficiently and memorably. Our OptionWORKS™ technology:
- Increases participant focus;
- Synchronizes group thinking;
- Enables broader participation; and
- Ensures that participants engage the information being presented while it’s fresh in their minds.
This page includes brief descriptions of our Governance InterACTIVE™ program offerings, including:
- A "Mock" Board of Trustees Meeting
- Governance Challenge™ Learning Game
Should a client have other ideas for ways to utilize our OptionWORKS™ technology, including interactive panel discussions or other interactive programs, we will develop a customized solution that fits with those needs.
"Mock" Board of Trustees Meeting
Purpose: The purpose of the mock board of trustees meeting is to demonstrate the importance of proper board behavior, relationships, learning, organization and decision making. The mock board meeting allows audience members to peer into a “live” board meeting, and interactively participate in identifying ways to improve the board’s performance. The session is designed to reveal problematic behaviors and processes that can disrupt the strategic direction and leadership focus of governance.
How it Works: The program is a “mock” meeting of the board of trustees of a fictional hospital. During the mock board meeting, which consists of four or five “acts”, the trustees of the fictional hospital (actual trustees, physicians and/or CEOs of local hospitals who volunteer to be part of the mock board meeting) grapple with various issues and challenges, commit “governance malpractice” and suffer from a variety of “governance diseases”. After each act audience members identify governance errors that have occurred during the act and answer several questions about their hospital's governance using OptionWORKS™; following each discussion the program moderator highlights some of the corrective measures the board could take to avoid the errors identified by the audience. At the end of the program attendees receive a list of every governance error committed by the mock board, with actions to avoid the errors.
Governance Challenge™ Learning Game
Purpose: The purpose of the Governance Challenge™ is to inform participants about current health care trends and governance issues using a Jeopardy®-style "game show" approach. Like all Governance  InterACTIVE™ games, the Governance Challenge™ engages the audience in a lively, energetic way.
How it Works: The Governance Challenge™ engages the audience in answering 20 multiple-choice questions in five categories. The "game board" displays five question categories in labeled columns, with four individual point value boxes appearing below each category. Point totals range from 100 points in the top box (the easiest question) to 400 points in the bottom box (the most difficult question).
Audience participants “call out” categories and point values. The question and answer choices for that point value are revealed, and audience members then have approximately five seconds to select their answer using their OptionWORKS™ handheld response card. After answers have been recorded, a graph displays the percentage of audience members who selected each answer choice, and the correct answer is highlighted, creating an opportunity for discussion and/or follow-up questions.
Audience participants are provided with a Governance Challenge Scorecard. Participants use their scorecard to keep track of their individual scores for each question. At the conclusion of the program, audience members enter their total Governance Challenge™ score using their keypads. The group’s collective “governance IQ” is then calculated, which enables each participant to compare his or her score with that of the entire group.
Value-Added Opportunities: Having a captive audience and the ability to secure instant feedback from audience participants provides program sponsors with a unique “real time” research opportunity. For example, a client may choose to have The Walker Company close the program by asking several questions focused in areas that provide valuable insights into trustee viewpoints in a variety of areas. The Walker Company provides the results of all audience voting to the program sponsors.
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Trustee Foundations™ Leadership Series Programs Available on CD
Each CD includes a PowerPoint® Show with high-quality embedded audio, and a comprehensive BoardBRIEF or discussion guide with further detail on the program  topic,. CDs are available for order online, and are $169 each. Click here to order a CD.
Trust at the Tipping Point: Building Trustful Governance in Turbulent Times
Boards of directors in America, including hospital governing boards, find themselves in the crosshairs of federal and state legislators, attorneys general, activist groups and the media, all of which are demanding answers and action on the governance accountability front.
Every hospital relies on a strong foundation of trust. The trust of and loyalty of patients and families, physicians, employees, the business community, government, donors and others touched by hospitals is a vital ingredient in organizational success. Cultivating trust among the hospital’s stakeholders and earning the confidence and loyalty that spring from it is a critical leadership responsibility of every hospital board of trustees.
This program explores ways boards of trustees can provide the accountable, trustful leadership required to strengthen confidence in and loyalty to the hospital, and solidify success at every intersection of governance activity.
Click here to order this CD.
Building and Sustaining Strategic Success: The Board’s Role in Strategic Planning
Building and maintaining focused, accountable and visionary trustee leadership is one of the principal challenges for hospitals in today’s turbulent health care environment. Complexity, financial strain and demands for new levels of accountability require motivated, knowledgeable trustees who understand how to think and lead strategically are critical in today’s demanding environment. Board leaders must be able to engage in new thinking and help executive management develop new directions to successfully compete in an increasingly challenging environment.
This program explores strategies for ensuring that the hospital's strategic planning establishes a true vision for the future in critical success areas, develops and prioritizes core and supporting strategies to achieve the vision, measures progress through a set of “vital signs” and continually redirects the organization to respond to change and opportunity.
Click here to order this CD.
Building Bonds: Pathways to Better Board/CEO Relationships
Hospital CEOs and their boards must build and sustain vibrant, trust-based relationships in order to successfully navigate the opportunities and challenges in today’s complex and fast-paced healthcare world. Mutual trust is a result of high integrity, clear and consistent communication, well-defined roles and responsibilities, and well-articulated performance expectations and accountabilities.
This program explores the dynamics of building a board/CEO relationship where the best skills and resources of each are used to develop synergistic leadership that inspires confidence and drives high performance.
Click here to order this CD.
Raising the Bar: Using Board Self-Assessment to Increase Leadership Effectiveness
Boards of trustees have a responsibility to continuously define and refine their personal and collective leadership capabilities, and develop targeted new strategies to lead their health care organizations through demanding and rapidly changing times. Trustees are accountable for ensuring that continuous quality improvement (CQI) processes are in place throughout their organization. But how can the board determine when it is under-performing? How can boards of trustees hold themselves to the same level of accountability for quality and improvement to which they hold their hospitals?
This program explores the key criteria healthcare boards should use to evaluate and improve their leadership performance, and how to use the evaluation process as a strategic tool to drive leadership improvement.
Click here to order this CD.
Governance Accountabilities and Opportunities in the Quest for Quality
Experts readily admit that systemic, structural problems in our health care system are at the root of the quality and patient safety failures that have increasingly shaken Americans’ faith in hospitals and physicians. Pressure will continue to build on hospitals and their boards to define, measure, improve and report their quality performance as the public and payers increasingly use patient safety and quality of care to compare providers.
Job one for boards of trustees is to ensure that quality and patient safety are always at the top of the hospital agenda. While trustees clearly have ultimate responsibility and accountability for the quality and safety of the care their hospitals are entrusted to provide to their communities, the best way to do that is subject to wide variation.
This program explores the best ways for a board of trustees to ensure that the hospital excels in defining, delivering, measuring, reporting and improving quality and patient safety.
Click here to order this CD.
The Community-Centered Board: Building Connections, Strengthening Value
Trustees face a broad array of complex challenges in their quest to meet the health care needs of their communities. Too often trustees become so consumed with the overwhelming issues of long-term survival that they lose sight of the critical need to consistently connect in meaningful ways with their communities.
This program explores ways in which trustees can redefine what stewardship and accountable leadership means, and how they can best carry out their governance roles and responsibilities in a community-centered, community health improvement-focused manner.
Click here to order this CD.
Best Practices in Medical Staff Alignment
Medical staff understanding of and commitment to the hospital’s mission, values and vision are vital to a hospital’s success. In order for the hospital to achieve its strategic objectives, medical staff leaders must be firmly committed to the hospital’s direction, and closely aligned with the strategies and objectives for achieving it.
This program explores techniques for probing physician viewpoints, and securing medical staff collaboration and cooperation that is critical to governance success.
Click here to order this CD.
Practical Prescriptions for Improving Governance Health and Wellness
Hospital boards face a broad array of complex challenges in their quest to meet the health care needs of their communities. More than ever before, governing boards need to ensure their ability to consistently provide the highly focused, strategic leadership required to sustain success in achieving the hospitals mission and vision.
This program explores the “governance diseases” that can plague hospital boards of trustees. It identifies the most common and prevalent "leadership diseases," discusses their symptoms and identifies practical prescriptions for improving hospital governing health and wellness.
Click here to order this CD.
Under the Microscope: Governance Leadership Strategies in the New Era of Transparency
Hospitals are in the middle of a new era of accountability. Hospitals are facing scrutiny from all angles, with continuing questions about whether not-for-profit hospitals are deserving of their tax-exemption.
This program focuses on what trustees need to know about the scrutiny of hospitals' tax-exempt status, and the importance of becoming increasingly transparent to prove hospitals’ community benefit, and build public trust and confidence in America’s hospitals.
Click here to order this CD.
Supercharging Your Hospital Governance Substructures
Board committees, task forces and advisory groups are an essential component of effective hospital governance and leadership. For many health care organizations, traditional structures and functions fail to meet the strategic issues and needs of today’s fast-paced, turbulent environment.
This program explores ways to maximize the role and value of board substructures as a strategic development asset.
Click here to order this CD.
Governing Leadership Essentials for a Complex Health Care World
Hospital boards of trustees face increasingly difficult challenges and issues in their quest for "zero-defect" governance. Building and maintaining focused, accountable and visionary trustee leadership is one of the principal challenges for hospitals in today’s turbulent health care environment. Complexity, financial strain and demands for new levels of accountability require motivated, knowledgeable trustees who understand how to think and lead strategically are critical in today’s demanding environment.
This program explores the challenges and requirements of building a highly effective governance team and ensuring a dynamic and focused leadership environment. it provides insights into a wide range of important strategic leadership roles and responsibilities, and practical knowledge about ways the board of trustees can improve its capacity to deliver the strong leadership required to sustain success in challenging times.
Click here to order this CD.
Tough Leadership for Tough Times: Governing Through the Storms of Change
Hospitals today are being buffeted by forceful winds of change that are converging to create a storm of problems for hospitals. Today, hospitals find themselves struggling to meet the increasing needs of patients and communities in the face of rapidly developing cold fronts that will radically change the way health care is delivered. The survivors of this storm of change will successfully prepare by understanding the forces affecting them, and designing unique community-based approaches to weather the storm and emerge stronger, safer and better ready to deal with future developments.
This program explores how converging trends in government payments, regulation, technology, workforce, quality and patient safety, accountability and transparency and others intersect to create a storm of challenges to be overcome. It explores what governing boards must understand and prepare for in order to weather the storm with high performance leadership.
Click here to order this CD.
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