While reading Paul Levy’s post on hospital rankings, I couldn’t help recall an American College of Health Care Executives (ACHE) survey that he discussed on “Not Running a Hospital” back in March of 2010. The ACHE asked hospital CEO’s about their top concerns. Below, a table shows the results: “Patient Safety” and “Quality of Care” ranked at the bottom of their list of priorities.
Granted, from 2004 to 2007 these issues moved up in the rankings, but CEOs still were more likely to worry about “financial challenges,” “the cost of caring for the uninsured,” and “Doctor/hospital relations.” They might as well have been the CEOs of auto companies, who worry about first about profits, then costs, then labor relations, roughly in that order.
Even worse, by 2009, Levy notes, “there was a major disappointment.” The two issues most important to patients appear to have fallen off the chart. “We can't blame just the CEOs for missing the boat on elevating safety and quality,” Levy commented. “It is the governing bodies of the hospitals, behind and above the CEOs, who should hold them accountable on this front.”