A statement like the above, from the mouth of Mr. Beck, should be testimony for most Massachusetts voters that Dr. Don Berwick is worthy of being elected our Governor. With all the recent diaries suggesting that we need “better Democrats”, no one is likely to propose a better Democrat than Dr. Berwick.
The fact that he was appointed by President Obama in April 2010 to the position as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid testifies to both his ideals and his prominence in health care. And the fact that, like Elizabeth Warren, he was forced out in 2011 by filibustering Senate Republicans tells you the rest of the story. If Don had remained in office during the past two years, might the rollout of the Healthcare.gov website have gone more smoothly? Who knows? But certainly Republicans’ refusal to allow the President to have those he nominated in key administrative roles has to bear some of the blame, even though no one mentions it.
Don’s career has all been about quality and error reduction in healthcare – exactly the sort of approach to process and management likely to have identified and resolved the current rollout issues. Please read below the fold to find out more about Don and why I am supporting his candidacy. And then, if you’re suitably impressed, please consider visiting his website and making a donation.
My field is project management, in which I have taught and consulted since the 1980s. I have a particular interest in healthcare because (1) healthcare systems project management is notoriously immature and (2) people die because of poor quality and late projects! I have no problem helping a corporation make more money by working more efficiently – but it’s another thing entirely to help a hospital save lives through better processes and systems, and faster implementation! This is what Don has done.
Don’s whole career is about saving lives. He began as a resident in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, and later joined Harvard Community Health Plan where in 1983 he became the plan's first Vice President of Quality-of-Care Measurement.
He quickly learned that caring for Massachusetts’ children also meant improving the hospitals, health systems, and communities that families depend on. About a dozen years ago, while searching for projects that save lives in healthcare, I came across the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) that Don had helped found in 1991.
A major focus of IHI was the 100,000 Lives Campaign which then evolved into the 5 Million Lives Campaign. The goal of both of these was the reduction of deaths due to medical errors. The methodology was the implementation and management of processes that would standardize well-known and simple quality techniques that can save enormous numbers of lives. The challenge was persuasion – getting hospitals to voluntarily implement these techniques. And the success has been immense and global! Conservatively hundreds of thousands, but probably millions of lives have been saved by Don’s commitment, powers of persuasion, and management of quality processes.
He has been named to the list of most influential health care leaders in the country every year for more than a decade. In 2011, he ranked #4 on the list – just after President Obama!
I was delighted when I heard that Don was running for Governor, and even more so when I met him and heard him speak for the first time at a fundraiser. His commitment to the ideals that Democrats share has been lifelong. As with IHI, his ability to persuade others to work with him is legendary. And his willingness to accept challenges that others call impossible has become second nature to him. Several years ago, I volunteered for Robert Reich's campaign when he ran for Governor -- now I am volunteering for Don Berwick.
Washington’s loss in the GOP’s rejection of Elizabeth Warren and Dr. Don Berwick is definitely Massachusetts’ gain! Just as Massachusetts voters elected Senator Warren to represent us in Washington, we now have the opportunity to have Don serve as the next Governor of Massachusetts.
And won’t that be a nice riposte to the Glenn Becks of the world?
If you’d like to know more about Don’s campaign, or to volunteer to help, his website is here.