Some permanent societal changes are inevitable due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic - such as the potential increase in the popularity of video conferencing. Healthcare industry is also likely to witness permanent change in the handling of governance, especially the purchasing authority given to healthcare CEOs.

Bill Horton, co-chair of the national Healthcare Industry Team at law firm Jones Walker, and former general counsel for one of the nation's largest publicly-traded healthcare providers has noticed that a lot of hospitals have large, community-based boards that aren’t accustomed to adapting and operating in crisis mode. They struggle to implement fixes, like meeting more often and conducting virtual meetings - something to which they are not accustomed.

Horton said its necessary to look at the kind of systems they need to have to respond as a board. It’s vital to ensure that appropriate actions are taken to empower the CEO, COO and other leaders.

One of the long-term changes would be a renewed effort to ensure that hospital boards are given an opportunity to know the challenges faced by their hospital on a granular basis, so they can respond immediately and make appropriate decisions.

Re-examination is needed about the level of spending authority granted to the CEO, who enter into contracts without coming back to the board for approvals. Now providers are bidding against each other in the market. This is a result of hospitals’ ongoing struggle to obtain personal protective equipment and testing kits.

Some hospitals have passed emergency resolution to approve more spending for their CEOs. Horton says that it is best to establish a kind of emergency committee to streamline approval processes.

Horton hopes that the manner in which telehealth is practiced and administered stays around post coronavirus. It would be beneficial even in a normal circumstance, where access to care is a huge challenge. If we go back to older ways, we will have to repeat the process in the case of a next healthcare emergency.