My favorite news stories are the ones that you could slip onto the front page of The Onion without anyone noticing. The Boston Globe article about Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy apologizing for making some unspecified "lapses in judgment" regarding an unspecified "personal relationship" is certainly Onion-esque. Whatever the blogging CEO's blunder, the Beth Israel board's and spokesperson's responses to the situation provide a lesson in crisis communications.
To give Beth Israel credit, the board took the first step and reached out to the Globe by issuing a written statement on Tuesday.
"Recently, a letter was sent anonymously to some of our board members and it involved allegations about our CEO," board chairman Stephen B. Kay wrote. "Even though the letter was anonymous, the board felt it needed to conduct further inquiry and has done so . . . It is the policy of this hospital to take all allegations seriously."
By Wednesday, two anonymous hospital sources told the Globe that the "undisclosed lapses of judgment" have something to do with an unidentified female employee and that the board is considering asking Levy to pay for the severance package Beth Israel gave the woman when she left her job last year.
But what I can't decide is why the board didn't just come out with it in the first place. Obviously they believed the presumably salacious details would eventually come out, which is why they took preemptive measures in contacting the media. But is not spilling their guts really helping anything? Beth Israel's internal rumor mill must be running faster than Goldman Sach's executives wish they were from Capitol Hill.
Not to mention external speculation and media coverage (i.e., this column).
Perhaps I'd cut the organization a little more slack if the person accused of wrongdoing wasn't one of the country's most prominent blogging hospital CEOs, who often writes about the importance of transparency on his Running a Hospital blog.
And if you're looking for more information, don't ask Beth Israel spokesperson Judy Glasser. She told the Globe that the board would not provide more details on Levy's actions because it does not discuss personnel matters with the public. I would say this approach was logical if, oh I don't know, the board hadn't been the one to alert the public about the aforementioned "personnel matters."
These contradictory statements can easily be explained: Beth Israel doesn't know what to do. They have an idea that they should get ahead of the story, but they don't want to go and spill the beans just in case the anonymous letter writer is going to keep quiet. The only problem with this approach is the ensuing wave of speculation.
Every hospital and health system, regardless of how much your leadership talks, blogs, or tweets about transparency, must craft a detailed crisis communications plan. With a strategy in place, all of the key players in your organization will know how to react when something unfavorable breaks without holding a panicky shot-gun meeting.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this story is that at press time, Levy hasn't addressed the issue on his blog—one of the best media to share unadulterated information. A couple years ago, I spoke about the transparency benefits of blogging with Nick Jacobs, then-CEO of Windber (PA) Medical Center.
"When we take on issues in the blog, it is the ultimate form of transparency," he said. "How often do you really know if your quotes will be printed as stated? How many times has the reporter interpreted your explanations a little differently? The blog puts it out there, blemishes and all, in an open, honest way."
When and if Levy addresses the situation in public, it will be too little, too late. The sidestepping verbiage isn't fooling anyone and, once everything is on the table, the evasiveness is what the community will remember.
Pages
Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.