Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi says Massachusetts General Hospital leadership needs to be more forthcoming about their mistakes, particularly related to concurrent surgeries.
The Boston-based hospital has been embroiled in the double-booking controversy since The Boston Globe Spotlight team uncovered the practice in 2015. Since the story broke in 2015, and up until a recent settlement with a surgeon whistleblower, MGH leadership has continued to publicly back the practice and say it has not caused patient harm, Ms. Vennochi writes.
"Mass. General strongly defends and stands by the decisions it made along the way,” Peter Slavin, MD, president of MGH, and Timothy Ferris, MD, CEO of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, said in an email after the settlement, according to the report.
However, she notes, documents unsealed in the lawsuit indicate a different conversation was happening internally and that a patient died from the practice.
According to Ms. Vennochi, documents cited in the lawsuit show hospital leadership created a new policy regarding concurrent surgeries 2011. However, years later, leadership was aware that the hospital was not compliant with this policy and discussed keeping this fact from the press, according to the report.
The hospital deserves its reputation as a leading medical center, Ms. Vennochi writes, "But amid all that greatness lurks a weakness — leadership that dislikes being questioned, and is less than honest about institutional blunders." The weakness could jeopardize its reputation with patients, she says.
Read the full column here.
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