Abstract:

Dr. Osnat Levtzion-Korach was the newly appointed Director of the Hadassah University Hospital-Mt. Scopus, a 350-bed academic community hospital located in the crowded, ethnically mixed neighborhood of northeastern Jerusalem. Mt. Scopus was one of two hospitals in the Hadassah Medical Organization; the larger 850-bed hospital, Ein Kerem, was located about 30 minutes away across Jerusalem. In the past, the two Hadassah hospitals had been centrally managed with the two on-site directors acting primarily as COOs. A new Director General of the system now wanted to de-centralize responsibilities, and Osnat, the first female head of a Hadassah hospital, had been promised much greater control over the finances and management of the hospital than her predecessor had enjoyed. The staff at Mt. Scopus pinned a great deal of hope on their new director to bring resources and a renewed sense of vision to the hospital, but Osnat knew her ability to do this depended in large part on her ability to manage costs as well as change a culture that had always prided itself on providing the best care but had not been held accountable for monitoring expenses or budgets.

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