Paul Levy Multi Media
Paul Levy: Taking Charge of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
How would you describe the situation Levy inherited?
The Beth Israel Hospital and Deaconess Hospital were consolidated and became Beth Israel Deaconess (BID) in 1996. BID operated under the Care Group Systems (CGS), which was an affiliation of some Boston-area hospitals. The BID hospital system was in anarchy. There were significant operating losses, amounting to millions of dollars each year. BID management seemed incapable of implementing turnaround plans. The hospital experienced tremendous employee turnover and suffered from poor patient care.
The old hierarchical structure continued in the new BID. There were layers of management with bureaucratic processes. Each department seemed to run independently of one another. Managers and chiefs were in psychic prisons as they seemed unable to move forward. Things remained as they always had, with no room for change. The board made decisions on a group-think basis, using past practices because of an inability to accept the changes that had been recommended. The organization could be called egocentric with its fixed idea of who it is and the unspoken need to remain the same old BI hospital.
Recommendations for a turnaround plan were never implemented successfully. Management would agree to implement change, but plans for change were often postponed or disregarded. The bureaucracy led to long and delayed processes that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Though the reasons were not known, plans just weren’t implemented.
The company could be analyzed as a machine in that each department seemed to go about their own business, each independent from one another. There were no over-all goals from management, though management was running the company.
Even with the Board of Directors (BOD), decisions were made from group think. The BID resulted as a defense mechanism to the new Partners Healthcare System. The BID leaders tried to
How would you describe the situation Levy inherited?
The Beth Israel Hospital and Deaconess Hospital were consolidated and became Beth Israel Deaconess (BID) in 1996. BID operated under the Care Group Systems (CGS), which was an affiliation of some Boston-area hospitals. The BID hospital system was in anarchy. There were significant operating losses, amounting to millions of dollars each year. BID management seemed incapable of implementing turnaround plans. The hospital experienced tremendous employee turnover and suffered from poor patient care.
The old hierarchical structure continued in the new BID. There were layers of management with bureaucratic processes. Each department seemed to run independently of one another. Managers and chiefs were in psychic prisons as they seemed unable to move forward. Things remained as they always had, with no room for change. The board made decisions on a group-think basis, using past practices because of an inability to accept the changes that had been recommended. The organization could be called egocentric with its fixed idea of who it is and the unspoken need to remain the same old BI hospital.
Recommendations for a turnaround plan were never implemented successfully. Management would agree to implement change, but plans for change were often postponed or disregarded. The bureaucracy led to long and delayed processes that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Though the reasons were not known, plans just weren’t implemented.
The company could be analyzed as a machine in that each department seemed to go about their own business, each independent from one another. There were no over-all goals from management, though management was running the company.
Even with the Board of Directors (BOD), decisions were made from group think. The BID resulted as a defense mechanism to the new Partners Healthcare System. The BID leaders tried to