The AdvoKayte Podcast.
S2 Ep3: Beyond Dr. Death: Why Good Doctors
Stay Silent: The Hidden Culture Inside Hospitals
Aired on June 24th, 2026

Podcast Summary (26m:25s). 

Standing Our Ground: Creating a Culture of Patient Safety.
An interview with Anne Roberts (Part 1 of 3)

Today, we’re talking about the culture of patient safety in hospitals. As Kay plainly states, “Hospitals that have a culture of patient safety are safer hospitals for patients and those that don’t are not as safe.”

Anne Roberts is the System Vice President of Medical Affairs Operations at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. She is also a lawyer who actively works on medical malpractice files with Van Wey & Metzler. Helping lead the national fight to hold healthcare providers accountable for avoidable errors and medical negligence, Anne is an expert in medical credentialization and peer review processes. Her experience with, understanding of, and willingness to talk openly about the inner workings of America’s hospitals and health care systems makes her a frequent guest on AdvoKAYte.

Designed to diagnose, heal, and help critically ill people, hospitals are also incredibly complex business environments. While patient safety is everyone’s responsibility, every hospital has a governing body that oversees every aspect of its operation. In hospitals, patient safety is ultimately the responsibility of the hospital’s board of directors, which begs the questions, “How are hospital boards constituted, and, What do they do?”

Anne mentions the "Just Culture movement in healthcare that tries to balance individual responsibility with the knowledge that many medical errors stem from broader systemic issues rather than professional negligence. A “just culture” in healthcare encourages open reporting in order to improve patient care by providing the supportive environment needed for staff and practitioners to feel safe reporting patient safety incidents. Some hospitals are adopting Just Culture while others continue to discourage employees from coming forward with reports.

So who is it that sets the “culture” of a major healthcare provider? 

Kay and Anne discuss who hospitals are looking for as board members. There are a wide variety of skill sets that lend themselves to good governance in healthcare. Good boards work as partnerships between administrators and clinicians. Bad ones that prioritize profit over patient safety often create or simply ignore systemic problems until a crisis occurs.

Short on time but long on information, this episode is a direct look at the best practices for patient safety in the governance and administration of American health care providers. Hospitals that follow them tend to see fewer patient safety incidents. Hospitals that don’t sometimes end up producing the outcomes we see in the courts way too frequently. It’s a matter of creating and fostering a culture that cares.