HRET and the Center for Healthcare Governance  periodically field brief, focused surveys to benchmark current practices and emerging trends. The first surveys, in 2004-2006, collected data from a designated panel of CEOs and board chairs.  More recent surveys have been fielded more broadly.

NEW: Survey on Trustee Demographics
In December 2007, the Health Research & Educational Trust and the Center for Healthcare Governance surveyed 249 hospital and health system CEOs about the demographic characteristics of their boards, looking at age, level of tenure, and work status of their board members.

Executive Sessions
Executive sessions can be a very sensitive topic for trustees and CEOs. With such a delicate topic, it is important to have objective benchmarks to compare current organizational board practices to the practices of boards from other health care institutions and to prescriptions from the field. Three hundred fifty CEOs responded to this survey.

Physician/Board Relationships
To get a better sense of how hospital boards interact with physicians and exercise their oversight of clinical operations, Trustee magazine, HRET, and the Center for Healthcare Governance surveyed CEOs and board chairs. Two hundred fifty-eight responded to this survey during the fall of 2006.

Patient Safety
In September 2004, Trustee magazine and HRET surveyed CEOs, board chairs, and a wider set of board members on the important topic of patient safety.