Why Does a Hospital CEO Blog – Inquiring Minds Wanted to Know – Paul Levy Talks About It

First of all he runs a “big” hospital in Boston affiliated with Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess with 600 beds. Mr. Levy talks opening about the blog and how it all got started in 2006 and being aware of what you can say and what you can’t say.

What is also a bit humorous too is “correcting something on a blog” and being safer, and anyone blogging knows this reality. He talks about his blog being used by reporters. One other item worth mentioning too is that how we all get connected through the blogosphere. He mentions on his trip to India about meeting “Scanman” in person, a radiologist in India, who you can find under my blog roll and Dr. John Halamka, the hospital CIO is mentioned and of course he’s in the blogroll here too being one of the authorities on Health IT all over the internet.

I took time out to meet Berci from Science Roll in person, and I should now say Dr. Mesko from Hungary, when he was here attending a convention in Long Beach, California last year. I have been the traveler many times in the past and it is really nice when folks you have corresponded with take the time and yes Dr. Mesko is in the blog roll too. We had a very interesting chat comparing healthcare and life in the US to that of Hungary, I learned a lot.

When you stop and think about it, where else can you get such a diversified group of people together and communicating? We all have our main areas of focus, but share interest in what each has going on too. Nice interview and we could certainly use some additional hospital CEOs in the blogosphere too. One other great comment he makes is the point that so many others seem paranoid about having a blog and he states the rules of thumb there are pretty simple, common sense and you don’t disclose anything that you wouldn’t also say in giving a public speech for an example and the same goes for pictures that are shared. The blog makes information available immediately to all, and that is the real purpose of a blog. Could you imagine if you had to use email to communicate such information:) Transparency rules on his blog for sure. BD