Sunday, February 08, 2015
No One in Charge
In my professionally active days, I liked to tell young
administrators that a hospital was an institution with nobody in charge and
that success came to those who learned to be productive in that circumstance.
With all the changes that have been taking place in recent
times, I came to think that perhaps that advice was out of date, but apparently
not so.
Partners HealthCare, the Boston health care behemoth, has
just appointed a new CEO, one Dr. David Torchiana. Since 2003, Dr. Torchiana has been chief
executive of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, consisting of
some 2,000 physicians on the medical staff of the Massachusetts General
Hospital.
The appointment was announced in a front page, above the
fold article in the February 5 issue of The Boston Globe under the byline of
Pryanka Dayal McCluskey and Robert Weisman.
Part way into the article, the reporters, referring to Dr. Torchiana,
state that ”In the medical world, the doctor group he heads, consisting of some
of the top doctors in the nation, is considered as influential as the hospital
itself.”
So it seems that my old observation still applies at the
Massachusetts General Hospital. It is an
arrangement that can be made to work as long as nobody cares about cost. But that is no longer the case. The Globe article also mentioned the recent
denial of the Partners expansion plan by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet L.
Sanders, who, according to the reporters, “was concerned that a bigger Partners
would mean higher health care costs for consumers. Partners is the state’s highest cost health
system.”
The reporters did not connect the reference to influence
with the cost issue, but Dr. Torchiana will have to.
