New York City’s Mount Sinai Health System seems to have a communication problem on its hands.
Recent headlines questioned whether or even suggested that the health system would be closing down Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in Lower Manhattan. The hospital is said to be losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
- “Mount Sinai denies reports it’s preparing to close Beth Israel” is how Politico New York reported the story on May 13.
- Crain’s New York Business said May 16 that the hospital was “close to announcing that it will cut its inpatient capacity.”
- “Tell Us the Truth About Possible Beth Israel Closure, Pols Ask Hospital,” said a DNAinfo headline on May 19.
Then, Wednesday, the story shifted to a definite — or definitely maybe — closure.
- “Mount Sinai to shutter Beth Israel Hospital,” reported Becker’s Hospital Review. The same story did say that Sinai would “put up a 70-bed hospital in place of the current 856-bed behemoth,” so maybe the headline writer needed to read a little more closely.
- DNAinfo went a step further. “Beth Israel Hospital Will Close Over the Next Four Years, Officials Say,” that online publication said in a headline. In the hospital’s place would come a “Mount Sinai Downtown Network” of small hospitals and clinics.
Well, Mount Sinai didn’t much appreciate the coverage. The organization released a statement from President and CEO Dr. Kenneth L. Davis on Wednesday afternoon that was critical of the media:
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“Mount Sinai’s plan to transform Beth Israel hospital has been erroneously referred to as a closure by a number of news outlets. This is inaccurate and we want to reassure the community that Mount Sinai Beth Israel remains open for business, and looks forward to continuing to provide healthcare for residents of the Downtown community. In addition to a $500 million investment in care for the Downtown community — including a major expansion of primary, specialty and outpatient surgical care centers — Mount Sinai will be building a new hospital with 70 inpatient beds, procedure and operating rooms, and a brand new ER just two blocks away. There will be no loss of services for the community at any point in this process.”
Antics over semantics? Bad reporting? Local, general-interest publications not quite getting the idea that there’s a national trend away from expensive inpatient care and toward hospital downsizing? Probably all of the above.
But why did Mount Sinai wait so long to clarify what it was doing? Even the press release that went out Wednesday morning was a little mealy-mouthed. Sure, the health system wanted to play up its $500 million investment in Lower Manhattan and bury any “bad” news, which it did, but the release left the “closure” idea open to interpretation:
The plan will transform MSBI gradually over four years. The current MSBI hospital will remain open during this transformation and services will be uninterrupted. All MSBI’s services will continue to be available in our Downtown network – except for the most complex cases and deliveries, which will be treated at other hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System. Any changes during this transformation will be made with the sole intention of enhancing quality and improving outcomes. Patients will be able to continue to see the doctors they know and trust.
That sure made it sound like the place is closing, didn’t it?
Photo: Flickr user Rex Dingler
