Metro Hospital Trustee Council.

The Metro Hospital Trustee Council was a voluntary association of Minneapolis and St. Paul-area hospitals and hospital systems. A predecessor body, the West Metro Hospital Trustee Council, was formed in 1978, in the the belief that hospital trustees were uniquely positioned to serve the interests of both hospitals and those of the larger community. A separate East Metro Hospital Trustee Council was also formed, apparently at about the same time. The East and West Metro Hospital Trustee councils were consolidated in 1985 as the Metro Hospital Trustee Council.

The Metro Hospital Trustee Council's primary mission involved two key components: education and action. It was thought that Council meetings enhanced trustee education by exposing trustees to systems-level issues common to all hospitals. Twice a year the Council also hosted a major conference for trustees featuring a prominent local or national health care expert. Council meetings and conferences were intended to help trustee leaders stay current on policy issues, and to provide a unique forum where trustees from competing organizations could come together to discuss common issues from the standpoint of the broader community interest.

Council meetings and conferences also provided a forum for action. In 1979 the Council submitted reports to the Metropolitan Health Board recommending voluntary measures to reduce excess hospital bed capacity in the Twin Cities area. In later years the Council developed policy statements on such issues as health access for the uninsured, hospitals' tax-exempt status, and AIDS-infected health care workers. In 1992 the Metro Hospital Trustee Council took a leadership role in creating the Minnesota Health Data Institute to measure and continuously improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care services.

The council was dissolved at the end of 1995 because of changing conditions in the health care industry and the resultant loss of hospital interest and support.