When making hospital decisions, keep the customer in mind and involve the local community, recommends Raymond Hino, vice president of Healthcare Advisory Services and FierceHealthcare Editorial Advisory Board member. The former hospital CEO of Mendocino Coast District Hospital in Fort Bragg, Calif., is a big advocate of the "citizen advisory committee," made up of employer groups, church members and anyone else that wants to participate in hospital discussions.
"I think of committee meetings as belonging to the members, not to me," Hino wrote in a Hospital Impact blog post this week about the citizen advisory group drafting the agenda.
Hino notes that the local participation engages the community and has been successful in gaining support for tax measures, hospital changes and in explaining the hospital position on rumors in the community. Blog post