Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to Bob Ackley:

 BA>> Christmas both, Archbishop Bergan Mercy Hospital provided a
 BA>> free dinner to the staff on duty - I'm not entirely
 BA>> altruistic (and Alegent Health - locally referred to as
 BA>> 'Alleged Health' - which took
 BA>> over the hospital in late 1995, most likely did away with
 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".

Just prior to the takeover the Alegent people had all the Bergan Mercy
employees into meetings to tell then the 'truth' about the upcoming merger.
They flatly stated that there would be no layoffs, but that costs had to be
cut.  I'm sitting there thinking "In a labor-intensive business, which hospitals
are, in order to significantly cut costs you *have* to cut people."  I
suppose that's
a consequence of me having a degree in Hospital Administration and an ability to
do critical thinking.  Then it occurred to me that each hospital involved
in the merger
had its own complete IT department, with nearly 100% overlap, which meant that
nearly 50% of them were redundant and would have to be laid off; but they didn't
have to lay anyone off because so many of the Bergan people quit (1 out of
1 systems programmer - and the other outfit didn't have one, 8 out of 9
applications programmers
(the other one was only a year or two from retirement), 2 out of 2 network
specialists
and 8 out of 14 computer operators) that they didn't have to.  At least 4
of the Immanuel
IT people also quit, including two who were given significant promotions and raises
and one of the four computer operators.

Immanuel, the other major hospital involved in the merger, ran its computer room
24x7x365 with *four* people, two of which had to be there during the day shift
M-F.  Everything else they did was with absolute minimum staffing too, including
patient care.  Shortly before I left the company newsletter had an item in it 
thanking 25 Bergan Mercy nurses for volunteering to work extra shifts at Immanuel
over a weekend to cover a sudden staffing problem there.  When I pointed out to a
manager in another department that absent a catastrophe or epidemic of some kind
a shortage of that many - 25 - nurses should never occur I was told I had a poor
attitude.  They wouldn't admit that somebody up there had screwed up, big time.

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


--- FleetStreet 1.19+