Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy posts the memo he sent hospitalwide following that incident in which doctors operated on the wrong side of a patient. Apparently, the team failed to do one last "time out" to ensure "right patient, right procedure, right side."

... What a horrifying story. What important lessons. We learned that when teams are busy and distracted, it makes it easier to overlook something. We learned that key safety steps, like the "time out," need to occur every single time, since even one failure can be serious. We learned that serious events rarely relate to the performance of any single person. We learned that we have vulnerabilities that we were not even aware of, and that there are surely others out there.

Actually, we re-learned all these things, because none of these observations are new and all of them apply to the entire work place. ...

But Levy adds that things went right following the mistake - the surgeon reported it immediately when he realized what had happened, hospital quality-care staffers began an immediate investigation, the surgeon and others apologized to the patient and senior medical staff agreed to inform the entire hospital about what had happened.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is an initial partner with Google on a GMail-like system designed to give consumers easy access to all their medical records - and background information on any conditions, drug interactions and the like (and also targeted ads?). Medical Center CIO John Halamka explains the system, including ways patient data will remain confidential.

Mark Baard, a Beth Israel patient, immediately signed up. Didn't work - his records didn't transfer over.

... I deleted my Google Health account after this failed experiment. I will eat my hat if the data have truly been deleted from Google's databases.

Any possible benefits to consumers from Google Health clearly outweigh the privacy risks at this point. ...

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy discusses a new initiative to dramatically reduce the number of medical mistakes at both its Longwood and Needham campuses - and says he'll post results over the next couple of years.

Six years ago, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was in such bad financial shape that state Attorney General Tom Reilly was pressuring the board of trustees to sell the whole thing to a for-profit company. Paul Levy posts a copy of the first memo he sent to medical-center doctors and employees when he took over six years ago this month - and adds:

... Tom and I had had a long-term mutually respectful and friendly relationship, and I had met with him the previous week and tried to persuade him to give me a short amount of time to turn things around. He agreed, saying, "Because you are personally willing to take this on, I am willing to give you a chance." (By the way, hearing that kind of sentiment from an AG is bit intimidating!) He placed strong and sensible demands on me and the Board to produce a plan, with strict financial milestones, and a commitment to regular reports on our progress. ...

Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, posts the entire report by the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, and discusses the findings.

A resting heart rate of 190 sends Lyss to the ER, where they keep trying an IV drug called Adenosine to slow her heart:

... By this time a crowd has gathered in my little curtained hellhole. I am not sure what's so interesting about me. It's a busy night in the ER. Don't they have a shooting or stabbing to attend to? I survey the scene. So many people in such a small space staring at me is only freaking me out more. "All these people in here is not helping my heart rate go down," I say. I can't remember too much after that, as they finally found that elusive third dose and had given it to me again. Pain. Fire. Stiffness. Limp. ...

A few weeks ago, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center replaced its old-fashioned paper-towel dispensers with new automatic dispensers designed to save money and reduce the chances of infections spreading. Beth Israel CEO Paul Levy reports the new dispensers - more specifically, the towels - were awful:

... The complaints started piling in. It appears that the new paper towels were too flimsy and would disintegrate in people's hands. You might think that the CEO would not hear about this issue, but I actually received as many email complaints about this item as I have about anything in the last five years. Maybe it is because I have been strongly encouraging people to wash their hands. ...

And so today, the hospital began installing the old, hardier paper.

File this under "Who's on first?" Beth Israel Deaconess CEO Paul Levy notes a baby born at the hospital recently was named Beth Israel. But read the comments on that post to learn what happens when you're named Beth Israel and you bonk your head and the EMTs bring you to the Beth Israel emergency room.

Beth Israel Deaconess CEO Paul Levy points to his hospital's origins in explaining why he can't wait to see Mitt Romney and his increasingly virulent anti-gay positions leave Massachusetts:

... Beth Israel Hospital was established in 1916 because of discrimination against Jewish doctors and Jewish patients. Open access was therefore a deeply held belief at that hospital, and it is a belief that persists with the new BIDMC. We welcome all ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural groups, and we do our best to treat everyone the same, i.e, as though they were members of our own family. This includes people of all sexual orientations: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and transgender.

This is not only a matter of social justice. It is a matter of life and death. To discriminate on any basis whatsoever is to say that some people are entitled to better care than others. We just do not accept this. ...

If nothing else, Paul Levy is certainly giving us the broad view of life at the helm of a major medical center.

Yesterday, he dished up the recipe for the Beth Israel Hospital cafeteria's chocolate-chip cookies. Today, he discusses what should happen when medical practitioners make mistakes - in particular, a note he got from an RN about a medication mistake she made a day after Levy had notified the hospital staff about disciplinary action against a physician.