Thursday, August 1, 2013

Money Talks

Thank you, Consumer Reports, for beginning to uncover the flaws in our healthcare system. Mass General Hospital rates second to last...much worse than average.  I am, quite obviously, an open book about this exact issue.  I will not be silenced.  

We deserve better.


My mind continues to race as we battle a severe wound infection, MGH's parting gift to D.  Let's take a look at the business I know pretty well.

In a bad year, MGH raises $200 million.  Like most medical centers, the typical 'administrative cost' on each gift is 15%.  We call that the money that keeps the lights on.  So that's what, $30 million in the hospital's coffers each year to do basic upkeep, to paint, to clean, to, for lack of a better phrase, spiffy the place up.

Many folks have asked me how the donors continue to give to a place where you're just not sure where your money is going.  But then the lightbulb flashes.  Donors of significance to a major medical center do not see the insides of the White Building.  They are safely tucked away into The Phillips House where everything is shiny, new and clean.  Where the nurses answer the call of the bell within seconds.  Where you are treated with delicate, careful hands on each follow-up procedure.

Tours of the hospital do not involve patient floors like D was on.  But you know what?  They should.  Average Joe should stay in a place just as spiffy as Well-Heeled Jane.  Every patient deserves the clean, safe, responsive care.  There are no excuses.

MGH's President, Peter Slavin, should consider the following while figuring out what to do with their (presumable) $30 million administrative influx this year:  

  • Rehab the dark and dank spaces like the White Building
  • Increase nursing staff on these floors
  • Develop a call system to which nurses will actually respond
  • Tie bonuses to exceedingly good rates in patient care and infection control
  • Provide nice spaces for waiting families
  • Provide training on how to properly prepare patients for discharge
  • Develop a post-discharge program where on the other end of the phone is not an annoyed surgeon or a Physician Assistant refusing to call back and talk confused, worried patients and family members through the maze of post-op medications
  • Train residents to listen.  Teach them they are not God.  Teach them to be better than their predecessors.  Teach them to care.
Need I go on?  

Do you know what upsets me the most?  I argued for this hospital.  I defended our choice.  Yes, we were referred to this particular surgeon and yes, he is the expert in this field, and yes, that goes a long way, but maybe it isn't enough.  MGH, I'd say, MGH is the top of the top, the best of the best.

Guess everyone is wrong once in awhile.