Larry W. Walker

Larry Walker is the President of the Walker Company, a Lake Oswego, Oregon-based health care management consulting firm. The Walker Company specializes in governance development, market research, leadership retreats and strategic planning for hospitals and other health care organizations.

Larry served for six years as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of 107-bed Mt. Hood Medical Center. He has also been a trustee of Portland, Oregon's Legacy Health System and two of its predecessor organizations, Healthlink and Metropolitan Hospitals. The Walker Company has conducted strategic planning, market research, governance development and leadership workshops and retreats for hospitals and other health care organizations throughout the U.S.

The Walker Company provides a comprehensive array of governance development services. The company's governance education series, Trustee FoundationsTM, offers both in-person and Web-based trustee leadership development programming on a broad range of topics, from governance basics to comprehensive workshops and programs on leading trends and "hot topics" that require board of trustees' understanding and leadership. Trustee Foundations is part of the Walker Company's GovernanceWORKSTM service, a broad-based package of governance development services that also includes governance organization audits, board self-assessment and trustee recruitment. In addition, the Walker Company publishes Governance InsiderTM, a quarterly electronic newsletter for boards of trustees that features practical tools and insights on health care trends and current happenings.

The Walker Company is a leader in using technology in leadership retreats and governance education programs to stimulate audience interest, interaction and engagement. The company's unique OptionWORKSTM audience polling technology enables participants to anonymously answer questions, rate and rank issues and priorities, and immediately see the results of the group's opinions. The Walker Company's innovative use of technology improves group participation, energy and focus, stimulates involvement, builds communication and speeds the path to solutions.

The company's leadership workshops and retreats feature comprehensive pre-planning and preparation, meeting support tools and materials, meeting facilitation, development of comprehensive, action-focused reports, and follow-up consultation on next steps.

The company's market research services include online and written employee opinion and employee benefit surveys, client surveys, medical staff opinion and needs surveys, and community attitudes and needs assessments.

Strategic planning services include development or review of mission, values and vision, environmental assessments, demographic research, determination of strategic assets and liabilities, and development of goals, strategies, objectives and key performance indicators.

Program Descriptions

• Everything You Need to Know About Health Care Reform and Delivery System Transformation. This 4-hour program explores the most critical factors in health care reform and delivery system transformation, and their implications for hospital governance leadership.
• New Times, New Directions: Navigating to Success in a Reform-Driven World. This 1½ hour program explores how to develop strategic scenarios and targeted responses that will prepare the hospital for success under a variety of unique strategic assumptions.
• The Reform Challenge Game. This 1½ hour "Jeopardy"-style game show program engages the audience in answering multiple-choice questions in four reform-related categories. A game board, questions and answers, and educational content is displayed on-screen.
• Governance Diseases that Can Put Your Board in the Leadership ICU. Featured in the September 2011 issue of Trustee Magazine, this 1½ hour program explores the governance diseases covered in the article and more, discusses the symptoms and conditions of each "disease," and identifies a variety of "governance prescriptions" for preventing and/or curing the governance diseases.
• Is It Time to Affiliate? Practical Approaches for Defining an Affiliation Strategy. This 1½ hour program explores the advantages and disadvantages of various organizational models, and describes the process a small rural hospital undertook that resulted in an affiliation with a well-known tertiary partner, which has improved quality, reputation and financial success.
• Defining Pathways to the Future: The Board's Role in Strategic Planning. This 1½ hour program explores trustees' unique role in the strategic planning process. It discusses the importance of developing a meaningful, evidence-based and vision-focused strategic plan, includes an overview of the steps in the strategic planning process, and outlines common reasons that strategic plans fail.
• Infusing Quality Throughout the Board's Agenda. This 1½ hour program explores the board's fiduciary duty to ensure quality, and how to avoid "quality fraud." It outlines quality oversight recommendations, and provides actionable ideas for boards to ensure that they fulfill their quality leadership responsibilities.
• Governance Quality and Safety: How At Risk is Your Board? This 1½ hour program identifies some of the leading risks that hospital boards need to be aware of, potential implications of not understanding and dealing with the risks, and ideas for ways to conduct a comprehensive governance risk assessment.