Letter from the Chief Medical Officer
Dear Colleagues:
In the past 10 to 15 years, we have become far more open than ever before in engaging the public around the care they receive. The hospital environment has shifted from a protective, defensive one to a culture that strives for transparency and openness, seeking to improve the delivery of care by learning from errors, preventable or otherwise.
This past spring, we opened our doors to television cameras, granting ABC unprecedented access to follow caregivers in their daily work. As a result, the public received an up-close look at the human side of medicine and saw how truly difficult our work can be and yet how we do it remarkably well. The “Boston Med” series presented us with an opportunity to share some incredible moments, including awe-inspiring footage of the first facial transplant here at the hospital and how invested we are in providing the best and safest care to our patients.
Though the series is over, our commitment to transparency remains as strong as ever. A new effort of the Department of Patient/Family Relations is helping to break down barriers between care providers and the patients and families we serve. The department is examining the role that patients could play on advisory boards, working along with staff to help us improve the experience of patients and families at the hospital. We have established a Patient-Family Advisory Council to that end, and we’ll hear more about that work in the months to come. We have also been removing barriers with the help of Patient Gateway, a program that encourages patients to communicate with us and ask us questions.
Over in the Center for Clinical Excellence, our Patient Safety staff are collaborating with Risk Management and Communication & Public Affairs to determine how we can more effectively share information about errors, in a blame-free way, in order to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to learn and prevent them from happening again.
We have an entire team, through the Center for Professionalism and Peer Support, who are training clinicians to overcome the existing barriers to transparency and patient-centered disclosure, and to feel empowered to apologize when medical errors occur.
We also must be transparent about our interactions with industry and assure the public that our decisions are in no way swayed by inappropriate industrial incentives. The creation of the Office for Interactions with Industry at Partners has done a superb job of creating new policies that limit these interactions when we are compensated for them, such as the creation of a CME course funded by a pharmaceutical company.
These efforts collectively are helping us become a better academic medical center, a better place to receive care, to conduct research and to send the right message to the public. Change is never easy, but the continuous move toward transparency is one that is healthier for us all.
Sincerely,
Andy Whittemore, MD
Chief Medical Officer