Leadership lessons for quality improvement

Groups related to this event

Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science

Event date

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Title

Being willing to see things clearly: Leadership lessons for quality improvement. View the seminar video

Speaker

Professor Paul Levy

Abstract

There a just a few core competencies that are essential for organizations that wish to enhance the quality and safety of patient care These include: reducing unwarranted clinical variation; understanding types of cognitive errors; crew resource management; elements of a just culture; and the value of transparency. In this seminar, Mr. Levy will present a leadership agenda that would support development and implementation of these core competencies.

Speaker profile

Paul F. Levy – author, speaker, and corporate advisor -- served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from January 2002 to January 2011. BIDMC is one of the world’s preeminent academic health centers, providing state-of-the-art clinical care, research, and teaching in affiliation with Harvard Medical School. Licensed for over 600 beds, BIDMC annual revenues were over $1.4 billion.

Mr. Levy first received recognition at BIDMC in 2002-3 for organizing a turn-around that saved the hospital from financial disaster after a failed merger threatened its closure. Later, he became known as a strong advocate for quality and safety improvement and transparency of clinical outcomes, persuading the hospital’s Board to adopt a goal of eliminating preventable patient harm over a four-year period and disclosing the number and types of patient harm on the hospital’s website. In addition, he received worldwide attention in 2009 for engaging the hospital staff in crowdsourcing ideas to save money during a financial crisis and thereby avoiding hundreds of layoffs.

Mr. Levy has written numerous articles in a variety of fields and two books, Goal Play! Leadership Lessons from the Soccer Field and How a Blog Held Off the Most Powerful Union in America. He was author of the widely read blog, “Not Running a Hospital,” created whenhe was one of very few hospital CEOs to share thoughts publicly about hospitals, medicine, and health care issues.

BIDMC was but one venue for Mr. Levy’s leadership abilities. Before that position, he was the Executive Dean for Administration at Harvard Medical School, where he was responsible for administrative, budgetary, and facility issues, as well as community and governmental relations. He was also helped coordinate collaborative ventures between HMS and its affiliated hospitals.

Mr. Levy has served as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Chairman of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, and Director of the Arkansas Department of Energy. At the MWRA, he had primary responsibility for the “Boston Harbor Cleanup,” one of the largest pollution control projects in the world. In operating the water transmission system for 46 communities at the MWRA, Mr. Levy carried out an aggressive demand management program which decreased water consumption by 15% over a three-year period. At the MDPU, he regulated the electricity, telecommunications, natural gas, and water utilities in Massachusetts. In Arkansas, Mr. Levy directed energy programs, planning, policy and advocacy, including such areas as energy conservation, renewable and fossil energy resource development, and regulatory and legislative matters.

From 1992-1998, Paul Levy was Adjunct Professor of Environmental Policy at MIT, where he taught infrastructure planning and development, environmental policy, and negotiation for seven years. He also maintained an independent consulting practice, providing strategic, negotiation, and regulatory advice to firms worldwide in the energy, water, and telecommunications arenas.

Mr. Levy is Senior Advisor at Lax Sebenius, LLC, a negotiation strategy and capability-building firm. He is a member of the boards of ISO-New England, Legal Sea Foods, and Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly. He previously served as a board member of the MIT Corporation and the Risk Management Foundation.

Seminar details

Date: Tuesday 21st February 2017

Time: 12pm - 1pm

Venue: Seminar room, Level 1, 75 Talavera Road, Macquarie University

Chair: Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Director, Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, AIHI