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Hospital board members are under increasing pressure to ensure that their facilities meet-or better yet, exceed-quality and patient safety standards. Hospital comparison Web sites, quality ranking programs, and government initiatives that link performance on quality measures with pay are prompting hospital executives to make sure that their board members have the tools they need to adequately monitor quality. However, this can be a challenging endeavor, because many board members are unfamiliar with medical lingo, the meaning of quality measurement data, and, most important, what quality indicators they should be monitoring. Here are five tips to help get your board members up to speed