A board can only be as effective as its members. Its vision, direction, and ability to drive change in a healthcare organization depend on the influence of its board members. Therefore, each member of the board should have something to add: a unique perspective, an unmatched expertise, and insights into a group of key stakeholders. Can you say your board’s members have that?
If you can’t, or you’re not sure, consider bringing a nurse executive onto the board. Their firsthand experience in patient care, clinical operations, and the administration of healthcare organizations provides them a thorough and balanced view. Kirby Bates team of nurse executive recruiters is home to nurse executives who have leveraged their experience in the industry to serve on influential boards in both private, public, and not-for-profit organizations.
Kirby Bates’ president, Melissa A. Fitzpatrick, MSN, RN, FAAN, serves on the board of UNC Health Rex, Gwynedd Mercy University, and the Sigma Foundation for Nursing, in addition to several industry advisory boards and journal editorial advisory boards. Peggy Loughery, MSN, RN, Senior Vice President of Executive Search, serves on the board of directors of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. Their ability to collaborate, translate, advocate, and govern make them exceptional contributors to a board’s work—as do many nurse executives.
Let’s dig deeper. Keep reading for 10 reasons why nurse executives are influential and beneficial to healthcare organization boards.
1. Nurse Executives Are Collaborative Leaders
Most nurse executives achieve the role after a decade or more of working on and leading care teams. They have personally experienced the intensive work that frontline clinicians do and have found a way to make it work for themselves and their teams.
That is no easy feat.
The work frontline clinicians and nurse leaders do is demanding, and it creates sharp, collaborative leaders as pressure makes diamonds. Additionally, nurse executives’ success depends on their ability to work with and manage interdisciplinary teams. The collaboration, strategic planning, ability to negotiate, and ability to weigh trade-offs make nurse executives ideal for board service.
2. Nurses Bridge The Clinician-Executive Gap
An essential risk that boards face is being disconnected from the clinicians on whom their organizations depend. This is particularly true when difficult decisions are on the table. What seems like a logical or prudent next step for a board could have far-reaching implications for an organization’s ability to recruit, engage, and retain clinical staff.
Nurse executives’ experience working alongside and leading clinicians, in addition to executive-level leaders, brings a much-needed balance to the typical board’s makeup. Nurse executives’ backgrounds allow them to interpret and translate complex patient care metrics in a way that resonates with board members beyond health professions, preventing boards from taking actions that aren’t rooted in patient, staff, and business outcomes.
“Because I have firsthand, lived experience with the complex issues of patient care delivery, I can bring the data to life for the committee members who may not have the clinical or healthcare executive background to understand the implications of the metrics that we analyze so diligently.”
- Melissa A. Fitzpatrick, MSN, RN, FAAN | President, Kirby Bates Associates
Board Member at UNC Health Rex, Gwynedd Mercy University, and the Sigma Foundation for Nursing
3. Nurse Executives Can Advocate For Clinical Workforces
As the population grows and ages, more people than ever need care. However, the healthcare sector faces shortages in nearly every staff type, particularly nursing. With the cost of recruiting and replacing a nurse reaching as high as $67,500, boards of healthcare organizations must take particular care when making decisions that will impact bedside clinicians.
Again, nurse executives’ experience working alongside and leading clinicians gives them indispensable insights into a workforce’s priorities and concerns. Nurse executives’ experience with the financial and administrative sides of care acts to temper the influence of their bedside experience. This enables them to advocate for stakeholders across the healthcare continuum. Overall, their presence helps boards gain a more objective view of how workforce management and resource allocation decisions will impact both an organization’s bottom line and long-term stability.
4. Nurse Executives Know When to Govern and When to Manage
The purpose of a board is, among other things, to guide a healthcare organization’s strategic direction, oversee major resource allocations and financial risks, and monitor quality. Its purpose isn’t to manage the organization. Many boards face the temptation of seeking greater control. Nurse executives can demonstrate how to govern without getting in the weeds.
The reason nurse executives excel at this is rooted in their work history. The rise from clinician to nurse manager to CNO demands action-oriented leaders to develop the discipline to delegate. Nurse executives need to be extremely cognizant of how they spend their time on the tasks only they can do—just as they advocate for clinicians to be working at the top of their license.
The experience of nurse executives and CNOs leading high-level strategies and leaving execution to those involved in day-to-day operations makes them vital contributors to board decision-making.
5. Nurse Leaders Have the Vision of Innovators
Nurse executives often lead or oversee significant innovations in an organization’s delivery model. From telehealth program implementation and adoption to shifts in staffing model efficiency, nurse executives are in the know and highly attuned to what makes these innovations succeed.
On a healthcare organization’s board, nurse executives are an invaluable sounding board and voice for innovation. They can advocate for adopting programs and processes that will make organizations more efficient, safe, and profitable while also providing insight into the feasibility of other proposed initiatives.
6. Nurse Executives Are Champions of Quality and Safety
While nurse executives are leaders in terms of innovation, they’re also responsible for patient outcomes, and that informs their approach to innovation and new initiatives to a significant degree. As a result, they develop a healthy balance of remaining cautious about jumping into unproven programs while making small, calculated risks when data and clinical outcomes support doing so.
As a result, they develop an ability to balance caution with risk regarding new initiatives. They want to improve efficiency and patient throughput as much as anyone else; however, they prioritize patient safety and care quality above rapid progress.
Nurse executives’ advocacy for patient safety on boards can help temper other members’ eagerness for innovation, ultimately helping organizations remain competitive while protecting compliance and quality.
7. Nurse Executives Bring Real-World Experience With Operational Efficiency and Resource Allocation
Nurse executives are not exactly ‘boots-on-the-ground,’ but their experience and collaborative relationships with nurses and nurse managers give them real-time insights into how a healthcare organization’s clinical operations work, and how the organization is perceived by clinicians. The value this brings to a board can’t be overestimated.
That knowledge, combined with nurse executives’ keen understanding of healthcare operations, enables them to highlight evidence-based opportunities for workflow optimization, waste reduction, and effective resource allocation. With a nurse executive’s presence, boards can better support care quality while pursuing sustainability and top-line growth.
8. Nurses Executives Bring Unique Experiences and Insights
Nurse executives bring unique experiences and insights to healthcare boards, shaped by their direct involvement in patient care, workforce management, and clinical operations. Their understanding of the complexities of healthcare delivery—informed by empirical experience—allows them to offer practical perspectives on patient safety, quality improvement, and operational efficiency. Additionally, the skills they develop throughout their career can further the board’s mission through things like recruiting.
Nurses possess a unique skill set that enables them to make a significant impact when serving on a board. Currently, I am leveraging my executive search experience to contribute to the recruiting committee of the Board.
- Peggy Loughery, MSN, RN | Senior Vice President, Executive Search
Board Member of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association Board
9. Nurse Executives Understand Community Impact
Nurse executives are often one of an organization’s highest-ranking advocates for health equity and addressing social determinants of health. Their experience helps them guide boards in developing strategies and making decisions that maintain financial stability while addressing community health needs and promoting diversity in healthcare.
10. Nurse Leaders Provide Boards With a Holistic View of Healthcare
While boards tend to have a mix of professionals internal to nursing and medicine and professionals beyond nursing and medicine, nurse executives are unique in the breadth of their experience. This allows them to assess and speak to the entirety of the healthcare ecosystem, from operations with a clinician’s perspective to growth from an executive’s perspective.
Few other board members will possess such a deep understanding of the healthcare economy and the real challenges of implementing care programs. This unique perspective helps boards consider their governance’s micro and macro impacts, ultimately enabling them to make the most sound decisions possible.
A Nurse Executive Could Be Your Board’s Swiss Army Knife
The bottom line is that nurse executives bring a powerful combination of clinical insight, leadership experience, and operational expertise to healthcare boards. Their firsthand understanding of patient care and workforce dynamics allows them to bridge the gap between executive decision-making and frontline realities uniquely. Plus, by contributing to strategies prioritizing quality, safety, and innovation, nurse executives bring a holistic view to the boardroom and assure that the board’s vision and direction reflect the heart of healthcare and its business realities.