Can a Hospital Afford to Share Its Warts with the Public?
Paul Levy, the blogging CEO at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has staked his – and his hospital’s – reputation on a culture of transparency. Although no doubt partly driven by Paul’s ethical compass, he must also hope that his unique brand of openness will be good for business.
But will it be?
An article in last week’s Boston Globe left me unsure. In it, reporter Patricia Wen describes Levy’s culture of openness (which has included a unilateral decision to lay bare data on hospital-acquired infections – making him the skunk in the room at Boston hospital CEO cocktail parties – and rapid and forthright mea culpas after serious errors), juxtaposing it against several recent reports of high profile mistakes and tragedies at BI-D, including a wrong-site surgery case and the death of a young woman during childbirth. Although the article raises the possibility that Levy’s openness is enhancing safety, I think most readers will come away with the impression that these high profile errors illustrate that Beth Israel might well be riskier than other hospitals.