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 ...

Modern Physician just named Adam Singer, the founder of IPC-The Hospitalist Company, its first annual Physician Entrepreneur of the Year. Adam and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I want to congratulate him and highlight some of his contributions. When the hospitalist field launched in the mid-1990s, Adam was there – I recall seeing him at ...

Medicare is now reporting actual risk-adjusted mortality rates for pneumonia, MI, and heart failure. The topic must be important, since ''Talk of the Nation'' spent 30 minutes yesterday interviewing Don Berwick and me about it… on the day of Hillary’s speech!To listen to the show, click here. Also, here’s an article from USA Today that got the ...

August 11th was the 2nd anniversary of the epic implosion of George Allen's presidential campaign, the first defeat at the hands of YouTube. Two recent videos of unattended patients dying in ER waiting rooms leave me wondering whether healthcare has also entered the YouTube era.Remember the George Allen fiasco? A 20-year-old Indian-American named ...

Just returning from a work-acation, including a talk in Buenos Aires. Today I’ll briefly cover a few items: Medicare’s final “no pay” list; patient safety in Argentina; a great post on hospital finances; and one of the saddest things I’ve ever experienced.First, the final “no pay” list. I’m not sure if this was CMS’s intent, but their trial ...

Yet another case of wrong-side surgery, this one at Boston’s Beth-Israel Deaconess Hospital. Though CEO Paul Levy does a nice job discussing the case on his blog, I’ll focus on two aspects Paul neglects: the role of production pressures in errors, and the tension between “no blame” and accountability.First, I hope you’ll read Paul’s piece (on his ...

This is one of the most commonly asked questions in IT World, and my answer has always been “CPOE first” – largely because that has always been David Bates’s (the world’s leading IT/safety researcher) answer. But I’ve changed my mind. Here’s why.Before I start, I promised that I’d let you know if I ever blogged on a topic in which I have a ...

Should doctors and nurses be subject to different penalties for precisely the same infraction? Of course not. Are they? Sure. Just ask Britney Spears.Britney was hospitalized at UCLA at least twice in the past few years – once when she gave birth to her first son in 2005, and again in early 2008 for psychiatric care. Both times, dozens of UCLA ...

Last week, Medicare added patient satisfaction data to its hospital reporting website. This is progress, but it raises an interesting question: should patient satisfaction scores be case-mix adjusted?The motivation to include patient satisfaction data comes from the Institute of Medicine’s inclusion of “patient-centeredness” as one key component ...

In this month’s issue of the Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety, I (with UCSF’s Adams Dudley and the American Hospital Association's Nancy Foster) tackle this provocative question. The answer may surprise you: yes (probably). The devil will be in the details.I hope you’ll have a chance to read the full article (the Joint ...