It’s pretty easy to be pleased with all the key players in this story; from Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, to the countless lower-wage hospital employees who make patients comfortable, to all the rest of the hospital staff at Beth Israel who recently applauded Mr. Levy when he asked them to sacrifice.
Developing Social Capital with the patients
This article, A Head with a Heart, in the Boston Globe, gives us a great example of how Social Capital is being developed every day from the caring, personable actions of hospital staff as they interact with patients.
Social Capital boils down to making people feel cared for
Paul Levy, the CEO of BIDMC, understands the power of Social Capital. He recently wandered the hallways of the hospital taking notice of things he did not usually paid attention to.
He stood at the nurses’ stations, watching the transporters, the people who push the patients around in wheelchairs. He saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine.
He noticed the same when he poked his head into the rooms and watched as the people who deliver the food chatted up the patients and their families.
He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans, and he realized that a lot of them are immigrants, many of them had second jobs, most of them were just scraping by.
What Levy discovered was that the people who performed all of the hospital’s thankless tasks, like food service, janitorial work and transportation were really in the business of taking care of people. Through their good humor and friendly banter, they calmed fears and lowered anxiety, providing a very real benefit to the people who need it most – the patients. They were not only in the janitorial or food service fields; they were in the medical field.
Asking for sacrifice
Recently, Levy addressed the higher-paid workers of the hospital (nurses, technicians, therapists). He planted a flag for ethical management in that auditorium that day when he asked them what they would be willing to sacrifice so he could keep the lower-paid employees working.
“I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I’d like to get your reaction to it,” Levy began. “I’d like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don’t want to put an additional burden on them.
“Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice,” he continued. “It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.”
He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Sherman Auditorium erupted in applause. Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause.
It is to Levy’s credit that he recognized what every patient of any hospital knows. Feeling cared for is a big part of being comfortable in the hospital. Regardless of the actual medical treatment, the patient’s impression of his stay has more to do with how he felt than how he was technically treated by the hospital staff.
When staff members are friendly and personable, they are developing Social Capital with the patient; the patient feels cared for.
Now these janitors, cooks and transporters may not be consciously engaging in Social Capital. They may just be naturally caring, sensitive people. But the fact remains that their combined actions—in regards to developing Social Capital with the patients—saved their jobs. It’s what made Levy recognize their worth and work to save their jobs rather than just letting them go in service of the bottom line.
Sure, this is a testament to Levy, but far more than that, it’s a testament to the efforts of all the folks who are making the guests of Beth Israel feel cared for.
Social Capital can do more than just help you help yourself. In some cases, it can save a whole group of people from the unemployment lines. Still don’t see the value of Social Capital? The folks at Beth Israel do.
16. March 2009 by Richard Chen
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