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In This Issue:
Kate Walsh, the newest member of the BWH leadership team, marked her first week on the job as executive vice president and chief operating officer (COO).
Walsh has had a distinguished career. She joins BWH from Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, where she served as chief operating officer. No stranger to the Partners system, she served in various capacities at MGH including senior vice president of Medical Services and at the MGH Cancer Center. In addition, her first exposure to health care was as an intern at Brookside Community Health Center. Her extensive health care background will be a strong and vital complement to the existing leadership team to move the hospital’s clinical, research and teaching goals forward.
BWH Bulletin caught up with Walsh for an informal question and answer session.
Bulletin: How would you explain your leadership style? Walsh: Various roles throughout my career have tested and strengthened different professional characteristics. I am a fan of clear decision-making and not belaboring issues that clearly fall into the yes or no category. I also appreciate the challenges and importance of communication in any organization and still find myself refining my ability to effectively communicate to a broad range of colleagues.
Bulletin: What are your thoughts on how to meet colliding challenges between high quality care and cost effectiveness? Walsh: I’m not fully convinced that these are colliding challenges. Compromising quality, cost or safety is not an option. I’m also not certain that more is better. A carefully crafted compromise will bring about the best solutions to maintaining high quality care while being cost efficient.
Bulletin: How important is it for BWH to meet its financial goals? Walsh: It’s absolutely critical. Without a margin, there is no mission.
Bulletin: What made you decide to join BW/F? Walsh: BWH is an outstanding organization. To be part of its energy and work with Faulkner on critical collaboration is an honor. I look forward to working with Dr. Gary Gottlieb and the team here.
Bulletin: In your view, what strength of BWH makes it most able to stand above its competition? Walsh: Innovation. Whether it is innovative patient safety and quality measures or simply new ways that patients are greeted when they walk in the door, I look forward to working with Patient Care Services and other departments to galvanize folks at all levels to continue existing and implement new advances in patient care delivery.
Bulletin: What external forces concern you the most as having a negative force on academic medical centers in the next five years? Walsh: Funding. As a society we demand state of the art medical care, but we often ignore, neglect or underfund the mandates needed to provide such care. There is still so much work that needs to be done to ensure proper and adequate funding is allocated to academic medicine.
Bulletin: What external forces do you most welcome as having a positive effect on academic medical centers in the next five years? Walsh: I’m sure all BWH staff share my excitement about the prospect of offering patients better therapies, treatments, diagnostics and devices. I’m proud to be a part of BWH, where these will be offered first.
Bulletin: What aspects of BWH’s Clinical Strategic Plan are you most eager to move forward? Walsh: Although it is a bit premature for me to answer this fully, I’m looking forward to working on strengthening BW/F’s distributed campus. I’ve sensed early on that management and other members of the BWH community are up for the challenge of improving patient and family centered care in a more accessible and convenient fashion.