In What goes around Kevin Cullen tells the story of Beth Israel Deaconess holding internal town meetings, and coming up with a way not to fire or outsource housekeepers and other low wage earners. Higher paid staff decided to forego raises and some benefits. As a result, 600 employees kept their jobs and Paul Levy, the head of Beth Israel Deaconess received at least 3600 suggestions – and took some of them.
What happened?
And now this news: The foregone raises will be restored in April. “I asked our staff, if we start doing better, what do you want back first?” Levy said, “We did a poll, and they wanted salaries restored.” Beyond good intentions, the transparency of the process made it work.
As one employee is quoted as saying:
…Hartsough knew she and her co-workers made the right decision. “I had never worked in a place where these things were discussed so openly,” she said, “for me, the most rewarding part has been the sense of everyone pulling together, of having our values tested and seeing how we reacted as a community, so that we can live out those values of generosity and compassion.” When she walks the long polished corridors, she looks at her co-workers differently. She’s proud of them and to be one of them. “We’re walking our talk,” Hartsough said.
Very different from another story on the same page, Police to lay off civilian liaisons in which there is no mention of an open process, asking employees for solutions, or any efforts to save these jobs. Are these liaisons valuable? Well:
Nine of 10 civilian liaison positions will be eliminated in September when funding for the jobs runs out. The loss of the liaisons, some of whom have been in the department more than 15 years alarmed community leaders who have come to rely on them to help facilitate gang truces, aid domestic abuse victims, and act as go-betweens for immigrants who don’t speak English or are afraid to approach police.
What if the Beth Israel Deaconess approach was taken, instead? What if Hyatt had taken the Beth Israel approach rather than outsourcing? What about Woods Hole’s Marine Biological Labs?
What if the Boston Police Department’s employees, like those at Beth Israel Deaconess, where given the chance to protect and take care of one another, as we expect them to protect and take care of us?
When I voted for hope and change, I also voted for a new spirit of community, in place of the rich getting richer. I hoped and even expected the kind of community and transparency that Kevin Cullen described at Beth Isreal Deaconess. I still believe it would work, that together we can take care of one another, and moderate this economy.
My challenge to Boston is to avoid layoff of those liaisons by holding their own town meetings and coming up with solutions other than the obvious, knee jerk, “cut cut cut” that impoverishes everyone – and constitutes business as usual.
What about it, Commissioner Davis & Mayor Menino?
Collective bargaining agreements probably address what is supposed to happen–senior employees stay, and less senior employees get laid off, period. My guess is that this would have to be bargained with the unions involved.
…is a great example for some of our big corporations to follow. See, JohnD, it CAN be done:)
As a Democrat and progressive, I’m heartened that BIDMC and its workers found a way to preserve these jobs. As a former customer of BIDMC, I’m disgusted that an operation characterized by arrogant, incompetent, and abusive customer service is perpetuated.
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p>My family left BIDMC, after ten years, in favor of Mount Auburn Hospital. We left because year after year, illness after illness, appointment after appointment, we were insulted, delayed, misled, and in all too many cases, had to defended ourselves from “mistakes” in billing that always went in favor of BIDMC. After five or six consecutive visits when the office “lost” our insurance information, causing them to send us a bill for the entire amount (which of course is significantly higher than BCBS billing rate for the various procedures), I contacted BCBS, explained the situation, provided the specifics, and suggested that these “mistakes” created the appearance of fraud. That turned out to be one of the situations where Senator Kennedy’s office was very helpful, because it turned out that we were not the only constituent that had noticed this practice. The suggestion that I contact BCBS was offered by the staffer in Senator Kennedy’s office, and it was effective. We noticed that the “mistakes” did, in fact, stop. Immediately.
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p>The final straw, for us, was a particular Monday morning last fall when my wife was in severe discomfort. We had left a message with the answering service Sunday evening requesting a morning appointment. We also emailed the same request using their secure email system. When we heard nothing, my wife called at 10:00a. She stayed in a hold queue for an hour and a half, afraid to hang up for fear of losing her place. The last straw came when she received an email from the office while she was on hold, spanking her for “tying up the phone”, and saying that someone would call her “as soon as possible.”
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p>That email meant that a human knew she was on the phone, had time to read her email, had time to write a snarky email to her, and did not have time to pick up the phone and call her.
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p>While my wife was on hold, I used my cellphone to contact the Mt. Auburn Hospital walk-in center. By the time we received a call from BIDMC (2:30p that afternoon), my wife was being treated in the Mt. Auburn ER. While she was in the ER, I was doing the paperwork at the Primary Care facility next door transferring us from BIDMC to Mount Auburn as our primary care provider.
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p>The staff at the Washington Square practice reports to BIDMC, not the physicians who run the practice. The physicians had, essentially, zero influence over staff attitudes. They could not give promotions or demotions, they could not set salaries, they were not responsible for hiring and firing. The conflict and terrible customer service was endemic for the ten years we were there. We stayed because our doctor was great. We left because we realized that it does no good to have a great doctor if we can’t see that doctor when we are ill.
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p>I had similar experiences with BIDMC specialists at the BI, with the ER at the BI (on the few occasions when we had to use it), and essentially in every interaction we had with BIDMC.
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p>While we are offering kudos for institutional response to workers, and encouraging local government to do the same, I’d like to insist that we also ask where the customer fits into this picture.
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p>Until we do something to replace this insane monstrosity that we call a “health care” system, I think we need to remind every provider that a necessary consequence of a “free market” approach to health care is that every patient is a customer, and customer service counts.
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p>The customer service at BIDMC is abysmal. It isn’t clear to me that this “triumph” accomplishes anything constructive towards solving that problem, and at least at first blush instead seems to perpetuate it.