PHILADELPHIA -- Gary Gottlieb, CEO of Boston's Partners Healthcare and a man Modern Healthcare magazine lists as one of the industry's 50 most influential leaders, kicked off his speech at the 2012 Wharton Alumni Health Care Conference by talking about failure. One of a three-member panel discussing the restructuring of outpatient care, Gottlieb explained that during the eight years he previously served as president of Brigham and Women's hospital, the infant mortality rate in the surrounding community was nearly three times higher for African American women than for white women. He called it "a failure on the part of my leadership" and said the memory serves as an inspiration as Partners reinvents itself for the new era of health reform. [ -- Conference session: Outpatient Restructuring. -- ]