Governance
Building an Ethical Global Marketplace
What does corporate governance mean? It’s not a familiar concept to most people. There are two aspects to governance. First is ensuring the organization complies with all applicable laws, rules and regulations; this is “compliance.” Second, governance means setting the ethical, moral, and behavioral standards for the organization and its employees, and seeing that they are enforced.
At Atlantic Health System, we take governance seriously. We set and adhere to strict standards of honesty, integrity, and transparency. We hold our organization and our people accountable. In its shortest and simplest expression, governance at Atlantic Health means we make sure we always choose to do the right thing.
Going Beyond the Rules
Some things that we do in ethics and compliance are mandated by law. But we go a lot further. Governance is a process that we’re constantly reviewing and enhancing. The standards we set apply to all 18,000 Atlantic Health System team members. Everyone is expected to follow the rules, and to care for our patients and treat each other in an ethical, honest, responsible, open way.
Privacy is one of the most important concerns of governance, particularly in health care. We take a multifaceted approach to protect patient and team member privacy, combining education, IT systems, and artificial intelligence or AI. AI is proving particularly effective at protecting both privacy and our sensitive operational processes.
Cultivating Leadership Diversity and Expertise
Governance is a central responsibility of every enterprise oversight board, including the Atlantic Health Board of Trustees. To best execute that responsibility, our aim is to have a board that is highly qualified, diversified in experience and expertise, educated about and expert in our business, and that also brings expertise beyond health care. And like our entire team, we want our board to be diverse and reflect the communities we serve.
Of course, the better our board members know and understand our business, the better they can do their job. In addition to a thorough onboarding process and regular education at board and board committee meetings, we look for ways to continue their development. We produce a podcast series, Inside Atlantic Health, specifically to give our board members insight into various areas of our operations that they would not normally learn about.
We’re proud and privileged to have a board that embraces its role to provide strategic direction and support to our leadership.
Our Top Accomplishments
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Business Ethics and Compliance
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- Created next level ERM 2.0, refining the program to address emerging risk and priorities and streamlining the oversight process
- Entered into approximately 100 Business Associate Agreements with our vendors
- Conducted approximately 150 educational trainings throughout Atlantic Health System
- Regularly strengthen our code of ethics and compliance policies to ensure that we meet our regulatory obligations, maintain appropriate vendor relationships and support transparent and collegial relationships
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Enterprise Risk Management
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- High tech tools to support effective governance — We use robust cybersecurity to protect patient records and all our systems is a top governance priority. Atlantic Health System is using artificial intelligence or “AI” to safeguard the privacy of patient records. Similarly to how credit card companies identify and send alerts of potential fraud to customers, our AI-powered systems alert us in real time to any activity that could potentially compromise privacy. We’re also using AI to safeguard sensitive areas of our operations.
- Resilience amid external events — We strengthened our cybersecurity posture through various technologies, enhancements, awareness. We also located alternative sourcing channels during COVID-19 and created a COVID-19 playbook for future reference.
- Labor & supply shortages — Atlantic Health System hired 32% more team members in 2021 than in 2020.
- Quality & safety — We implemented High Reliability Organization (HRO) program principles and training to promote patient safety and efficient care delivery. HRO employs predictable and repeatable systems to support consistent operations while catching and correcting potentially catastrophic errors before they happen.
- Engagement —We surpassed NJ Patient Experience threshold as measured and reported by Press Ganey, a leading provider of advanced analytics based on the development and distribution of patient satisfaction surveys; recognized as a Fortune “Great Place to Work” for the 14th consecutive year.
- Market growth — Atlantic Health System expanded operations in Hudson, Bergen, Somerset and Monmouth Counties, including in Bayonne, Paramus, Bridgewater.
- Care coordination— We enrolled 575+ patients in the COVID-19 Advanced Care at Home program, handled 38,000+ care coordination episodes and established additional community partnerships.
- Innovation — We built framework to support digital front door initiative and launched the Atlantic Health Venture Studio.