Leadership Letter June 2025: Effective Governance Requires All Clinical Viewpoints

Dear Colleagues,

Today’s healthcare boards are taking on a continually complex charge to lead a different kind of healthcare organization tomorrow. At The Governance Institute (TGI), this translates into hard conversations about board recruitment, skills and viewpoints, and ultimately, what makes an effective board, which may be a different equation than in years past.

With the rapid evolution and deployment of generative AI in healthcare, the clinical voice in the boardroom becomes more critical. And that clinical voice must include nurses. Nurses are more attuned to complex, systemic failures than physicians. Nurses have a perhaps greater potential to answer the harder questions about AI, from why, when, where, and how it should be used, to determining the right equation of technology plus humans to reduce burnout without replacing the human experience.

Our nationwide surveys of board structure and composition have shown very little to no growth of nurses on boards, which is why we partner with NOBC to help emphasize the importance of nurses in governance. For most organizations, nurses are present in the boardroom but do not hold a voting seat like their physician counterparts. We would like to see this balance change in order to take board effectiveness to the future.

Kathryn C. Peisert

Editor in Chief & Senior Director

The Governance Institute

The Governance Institute curates leading-edge, comprehensive educational resources and programs for healthcare boards that are tailored to individual needs and accelerate effective governance.