Chasing the Rabbit: Official Blog by Author Steven Spear

Faced with the challenge of cutting costs, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) CEO Paul Levy suggested that everyone take a hit, in particular to protect the lowest wage earners in the hospital’s employ.  The response in the crowded auditorium was thunderous ovation with higher paid people volunteering to forgo raises, bonuses, and to work fewer days (”A Head with a Heart,” Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe, March 12, 2009).  

This response is wholly consistent with BIDMC’s efforts to achieve perfect safety by being transparent when systems fail, using that transparency to see problems so they can be solved.  Doing so breaks a prevailing false paradigm in health care, replacing it with one that is more accurate.  The false paradigm is that success depends on individual inspiration and heroics–most especially by sanctified physicians, through whose hands cure flows.  The more accurate paradigm is that everyone, regardless of specialty or rank, contributes to a system larger than themselves and no one succeeds unless the system does as a whole.  The BIDMC staff’s enthusiasm reflects their belief that no one is dispensable nor is anyone singularly and solitarily essential.   

Related posts:

1. Errors and Openness at Beth Israel Deaconess
2. Breaking the Tradeoff Paradigm Among Quality, Safety, and Cost
3. Incident Reporting Systems: Inadequate tool for quality and safety…
4. Economic Recovery Package–A systems perspective (Part I)
5. Krugman concedes main objection: In fact, more care needn’t cost more…