...

 BA>>> that little benefit; Alegent is
 BA>>> far more concerned with reducing costs than with providing
 BA>>> top quality care, which
 BA>>> is the main reason I left the company in early 1997).

 BK>>  Yeah, and the quality of health care in this country is more and
 BK>> more "alleged".

 BA> Just prior to the takeover the Alegent people had all the
 BA> Bergan Mercy employees into meetings to tell then the
 BA> 'truth' about the upcoming merger. They flatly stated that
 BA> there would be no layoffs, but that costs had to be cut.

 No layoffs, just stick it to the ones who are there.

 BA> I'm sitting there thinking "In a labor-intensive business,
 BA> which hospitals are, in order to significantly cut costs
 BA> you *have* to cut people."  I suppose that's
 BA> a consequence of me having a degree in Hospital
 BA> Administration and an ability to
 BA> do critical thinking.

 IOW, you were overqualified for the job, so you had to go.

 BA> Then it occurred to me that each
 BA> hospital involved in the merger
 BA> had its own complete IT department, with nearly 100%
 BA> overlap, which meant that nearly 50% of them were redundant
 BA> and would have to be laid off; but they didn't

 With our IT dept I think 50% of them could be laid off, without
 any overlap. I believe our IT dept is like Dilberts, run by the
 "Preventer of Information Services".

 BA> have to lay anyone off because so many of the Bergan people
 BA> quit (1 out of 1 systems programmer - and the other outfit

 So, there was madness to their method. No need to lay you off,
 you're going to quit anyway.

 ...

 BA> Immanuel, the other major hospital involved in the merger,
 BA> ran its computer room
 BA> 24x7x365 with *four* people, two of which had to be there
 BA> during the day shift M-F.

 We do the same with my dept. Only we have one person normally at
 a time. We have one trainee also.

 Our california plant did it for quite a while with two people.
 They couldn't find anyone qualified to hire, so they were
 practically begging us to go out there for maybe a month at a
 time so those guys could get some time off.

 BA> Everything else they did was
 BA> with absolute minimum staffing too, including

 People die under those kinda conditions.

 BA> patient care.  Shortly before I left the company newsletter
 BA> had an item in it thanking 25 Bergan Mercy nurses for
 BA> volunteering to work extra shifts at Immanuel
 BA> over a weekend to cover a sudden staffing problem there.
 BA> When I pointed out to a
 BA> manager in another department that absent a catastrophe or
 BA> epidemic of some kind
 BA> a shortage of that many - 25 - nurses should never occur I
 BA> was told I had a poor
 BA> attitude.  They wouldn't admit that somebody up there had
 BA> screwed up, big time.

 Yeah, admitting mistakes is verboten.

 BA> Should note that in the 15 months between the merger that
 BA> created Alegent and my
 BA> departure about sixty percent of the staff at Bergan Mercy
 BA> - across all departments
 BA> - quit.

 And that is why mortality rates for hospitals should be public
 knowledge.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Some things you cannot change will change you if you do not oppose them.
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