kaiserfraud ([info]corphq) wrote,
@ 2006-11-06 20:04:00
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Entry tags:kaiser manipulates media, kaiser permanente, kaiser tech, kaiser workers

Cliff Dodd Takes One For the Team!
Can anyone confirm the rumor that Kaiser CIO Cliff "Swirl" Dodd resigned tonight?

I think a choir of angels just broke into song...

Update: Powerful comment left on my previous post:

As an employee at the only Northern California Kaiser that has gone live in the inpatient setting. The Health Connect outages now called "code white" are dangerous to patient care. The Key is that THERE IS NO BACKUP. When the system is down, RNs cannot lookup key information like vitals, lab work, medication orders. THERE IS NOTHING ON PAPER. We may not know what Mrs. Jones last blood pressure was, or when or what her next medication is due. This is scary!!!

I wonder if Andy Wiesenthal mentioned this when he was buttering up the Ways and Means Committee last year and trying to resell HealthConnect (the EMR) to the Federal govt.

Important Update: The Dodd resignation seems to be confirmed. For those interested, here's the memo, as well as Kaiser's first salvo against Justen (at least they sicced their lamest "Issues Management" expert on him - Schiffgens, ROTFLMAOBBQ!!!).

1. Cliff Dodd Thrown to Wolves

2. KP Big PR Guns vs. Justen

Ps. I have to point out the hypocrisy of responding to Justen's "email-clogging" broadcast email with another broadcast email. Obviously only Kaiser's "Issue Managers" are allowed to clog everyone's email. :-)

(20 comments) - (Post a new comment)

It Would Be Appropriate ...
[info]intrepidliberal
2006-11-07 05:24 am UTC (link)
to serenade Mr. Dodd and Mr. Wiesenthal with John Lennon's classic, "Instant Karma's gonna get you ..." Both gentlemen embody feculence. Both should at best be unemployed forever and at worst doing hard time in prison. Let them learn about rehabilitation with hard core criminals because if you think about it - both men have facilitated the deaths of Kaiser members. Both are accomplices to Kaisercide and have blood on their hands. They should be treated as such by the law.

Intrepid Liberal Journal

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: It Would Be Appropriate ...
[info]corphq
2006-11-07 05:40 am UTC (link)
People have to realize, though, that while Cliff was the CIO of the whole shebang, there are also CIOs of the various regions.

In my blog here, I've mostly been concerned with the Northern California region ("TPMG") because that's where I worked. The tone set by the CIO (Glenn Rennels) was really destructive. He applied sports and war metaphors to *internal* matters. His relationship with larger Kaiser governance was, and I quote, a "full court press" to "open a hole so The Technology Group could run through." At one point he played brinksmanship with the jobs of everyone in the department. What this means is that he didn't care about what was good for the entire organization - he was willing for the Technology Group to aggrandize itself at everyone else's expense. And if he didn't win his battles, he was ready to take The Technology Group down with him.

I don't think he can be entirely blamed for this sort of posturing. Obviously he was hired to take that approach, and he continued to do what worked for him. Hopefully, part of the fallout from the EMR tragicomedy is that the people in charge of Northern California will take another look at this management strategy. Hopefully they will advise a different course that's more about "we're in this together."

My cubicle was right outside Glenn Rennels' door. I hope there are occasions when he remembers me, and that he realizes that it's people like me that get chewed up and spit out by the games high level executives play.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: It Would Be Appropriate ...
(Anonymous)
2006-11-07 06:43 am UTC (link)
Glenn Rennels... he had my former boss running in circles in KP-IT, always bucking the trend and trying to shoe horn systems in that weren't Kaiser 'standard'. Of course, KP's IT strategy from the regional level is all screwed up to begin with, but that's a subject for a different day.

I just sent the internal email regarding Halvorson accepting Dodd's resignation....

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: It Would Be Appropriate ...
[info]corphq
2006-11-07 06:55 am UTC (link)
Thanks for the additional insight on Glenn. One of things he did to the Technology Group was suck up what was already a huge budget ($9 million dollars) on hiring programmers. He obviously wanted to be leading an IT division rather than a bunch of project managers.

Ps. I got right on posting that memo. ;-)

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Swirling.... faster....
(Anonymous)
2006-11-07 06:50 am UTC (link)
Just revisited the article linked in your post regarding Dodd. Wonder if they'll do a follow up now that he's resigned and note that we're still swirling down the commode. Actually we were doing great before he got here, then he came and added multiple layers of management and screwed things up. Oh well.....

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Swirling.... faster....
[info]corphq
2006-11-07 06:56 am UTC (link)
Kaiser has billions in reserves - it has the cushioning to get their act together. I call on them to start trying to do right by their employees and the patients their organization serves. This cover-up-and-retaliate routine is getting ridiculous.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Justen's 'mass' email.....
(Anonymous)
2006-11-07 07:10 am UTC (link)
I never got Justen's email directly. I got it from someone in my group who got it from I have no idea where. So in effect, you can say that the broadcast email sent by SCPMG did FAR more damage to our very delicate and fragile email system than Justen's did. Chances are, Justen's spread more like a worm or virus in that it went to an initial group, then those people spread it around to people who they knew who weren't on the original list and on and on.

One thing to note regarding Justen's outage numbers for KP Health(Dis)Connect is that more and more medical centers are being added to the Inpatient portion, which would account to some degree for the larger number of user hours affected, or whatever the measure is. I've been involved in some of the go-lives as I support an interfacing system. We did Riverside last week, and will be doing San Diego shortly. So basically, more users are being added to a faulty system. Even though it's been implemented regionally, an outage even on a regional basis can affect a large user and patient population on multiple levels.

One could argue that you'd have the same problem if you put everything on a mainframe. Problem with that argument would be that mainframes have a history of reliability and scalability. (Ironically, KP-CIS was an AIX and mainframe based solution.) Solutions like Epic, which are largely based on Microsoft machines, don't have that proven reliability as of yet. Throw in Citrix on top of that, and several other pieces of the Epic puzzle, and you've got a very unstable system.

Just my perspective.... too bad I didn't paid the $1 million like Tanning Consulting did.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Justen's 'mass' email.....
[info]corphq
2006-11-07 07:20 am UTC (link)
When Halvorson first made the Epic announcement, the first criticism was that Epic was developed in MUMPS - an antiquated programming language that isn't even taught in college. At the time I thought that would enslave Kaiser to Epic's vendors. Is that part of what happened?

I suppose the same thing can be said of the mainframe or midframe approach.I had to learn some RPG for one of my first jobs, and I couldn't even find a book on it. The operations area was falling apart and half the procedures didn't even work because as AS-400 staff left, they were just replaced by entry level workers like me with the sketchiest of programming skills.

The thing about more users being funneled into a faulty system is outright Orwellian. It also sounds like disaster is inevitable.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Justen's 'mass' email.....
(Anonymous)
2006-11-09 12:02 pm UTC (link)
I don't really have an opinion on Epic, just a technical note... It actually uses Cache, a modern implementation of MUMPS. It's not really fair to call it antiquated as it's widely used in health apps.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Justen's 'mass' email.....
[info]corphq
2006-11-09 03:29 pm UTC (link)
To me that just argues a lot of health care apps are antiquated and/or dominated by the vendors. Once corporations can't send employees to the local community college to take a class (and the community college isn't turning out desperate entry level employees to hire dirt cheap), then the programming language is obsolete for business purposes. Of course Epic is going to play that down because they want endless consultant work.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Back-ups
(Anonymous)
2006-11-09 06:03 pm UTC (link)
A paper back up is not realistic for a system like HealthConnect(unlike say receipts for voting). Ebay doesnt have one. What it does have is a parallel process for back-ups that means if the system goes down, a parallel one takes over. And to be fair they only got that up back in the late 1990s when they had 2 or 3 days of complete outage.

That's what they need to be working on, and I hope to hell that they are!

Matthew Holt (who has no idea how to make LiveJournal comments work)

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Back-ups
[info]corphq
2006-11-09 08:07 pm UTC (link)
Sorry for the delay, Matthew! I'm at a conference, and the wireless connection is SUCKING. So there may be a delay in the comments.

Also - good point.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Another employee's response to George Halvorson's SEND-ALL
(Anonymous)
2006-11-11 11:05 pm UTC (link)
CUT AND PASTED

George,


In regards to your below e-mail, I have two concerns...and neither concern is about HealthConnect or Kaiser Permanente specifically. Due to the fact that your e-mail specifically stated, "And let me know if you have any questions or concerns.", please consider this e-mail as such.


My first concern is in regards to when you stated, "young man". While you may not have intended this wording to be EEOC-related, it could be misconstrued as a verbal mistreatment of younger generations. We have many valued employees here, all from different age groups. None of which is more or less important than the others.


My second concern is in regards to when you stated, "relatively new to KP". Are you stating that new(er) employees are not valued in our organization? Whether somebody has been at Kaiser Permanente for one month or twenty years, they can still provide great service to our patients. It is not the length of one's employment that proves their dedication and worth, it is the quality of the work they put into the hours they are with the company.


While I cannot speak for Justen's intentions, nor yours, I appreciate the opportunity you have given all of us to address our "questions or concerns" directly to you. As you are now aware of my concerns, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

***************************************************************************

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Another employee's response to George Halvorson's SEND-ALL
[info]corphq
2006-11-11 11:14 pm UTC (link)
This Supreme Court decision might be relevant, too. Referring to an adult employee as a child is demeaning.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
George Halvorson's SEND-ALL
(Anonymous)
2006-11-11 11:08 pm UTC (link)
CUT AND PASTED

KP-Office-of-the-CEO


11/06/2006 10:38 PM
To
cc
Subject

A Message from George Halvorson


Dear Colleague,

An e-mail was recently sent out broadly to members of our staff stating a number of concerns. Since the e-mail was directly critical of my approach at
several levels, and since it seems to be getting a fairly wide distribution, I thought I would personally send out a quick response. I hope this information
is useful to you. Please let me know your reaction to this information.

Let me start with the comments about the KFHP/H Board. We have actually assembled an extremely competent and highly independent Board. Their
credentials are attached. We have one of the best qualified and most diverse Boards in America. An assessment that says we have a ?rubber stamp? Board, is, I believe, fairly obviously inaccurate.

The person who wrote the e-mail is a young man relatively new to KP whose job involves publications. I suspect he hasn?t evaluated very many Boards. We have an excellent Board doing very good work.

The e-mail writer initially raised the very same set of concerns he noted in his current broadcast e-mail directly with our Board last August. As we do in
those cases, a full and objective investigation followed, with a report made back to the Board by both our compliance staff and our legal staff. The Board concluded that the charges were theory, not fact. He was then asked to provide any actual facts or evidence that he might have. He did not comply with that request. Instead, he wrote the e-mail that you may have read.

Let me address the other issues included in the e-mail. The KP HealthConnect issues are both inaccurate and wrong. The e-mail described what seemed to be a brief and potentially arbitrary decision making process. That was inaccurate. There were no ?day one? decisions by me or anyone else. We actually went through an extensive and very inclusive review of our system options. All the major issues ? including the capacity issues he mentioned ? were raised and carefully reviewed in that process. Experts were hired. Site visits were made. Credible people ? including the KLAS independent system review organization ? concluded that EPIC has the best automated medical record, the best billing system, and the best inpatient hospital system available to us. Dozens of other major care systems and medical groups have reached that same conclusion. To say that EPIC was a bad or inferior choice is highly inaccurate. We very much need the EPIC functionality. The billing system alone is crucial to our operational survival, as people actually involved in our billing process know. Our old home-grown CIS system simply did not have that needed functionality.

The author of the e-mail seems to be reading some initial process notes about concerns expressed early in the system selection evaluation process, and he has evidently derived his ?bad choice? theory from some mixture of early, incomplete and inadequate information.

Relative to systems outages, the EPIC system rates very highly among competitive systems on reliability scores. The e-mail writer used somewhat
problematic outage numbers in his e-mail message. To show the rate of increase, he chose a uniquely and unusually low problem month for outages as
his performance comparison base. That?s a bit misleading. Our systems availability percentage goal by year end is 99.5 percent. For the last six
months, we have been averaging 99.54 percent availability. That?s significant progress since roughly a year ago when we were below 98 percent.

In addition, it?s important to understand that the outages we have faced have not been due to the Epic system. They have been due to issues like power
outages in data centers, configuration issues in old data centers, and deployment of the Citrix® software tools. The outage numbers and their causes
are all, by the way, reported to the Accountability Committee of our Board

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: George Halvorson's SEND-ALL
[info]corphq
2006-11-11 11:16 pm UTC (link)
Yep - Halvorson clogging the email system with bullsh*t.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Lon O'Neil's SEND-ALL
(Anonymous)
2006-11-11 11:09 pm UTC (link)
CUT AND PASTED

Sent: 11/05/2006 04:48 PM

Subject: An Important Message >From Lon O'Neil, Senior Vice President, Human Resources

You may have received an email from an employee concerning the selection and viability of the Epic software system. The person who sent the email works in one of our medical centers. His job is to track employee completion of training programs.

I am writing to provide you with Kaiser Permanente's response to issues raised by the employee to assist you in responding to questions from your team members who received the email. You may forward this email to your team members if you feel there is a need for further clarification.

In the email, the employee claimed that a decision in 2002 to change software vendors was contrary to internal engineering reports. He also says the decision was influenced by alleged conflicts of interest on the part of senior management, and is placing undue financial burdens on our organization.

The employee first made these same charges in August of this year. They were fully investigated, first by Compliance and then by the Health Plan Legal Department. The investigation findings were reviewed with our Board of Directors, as is our standard policy.

Our investigation found that the decision to change vendors was made in an open and inclusive process and was based on extensive technical and financial studies. The decision was also made based on the fact that the new system contained extensive and badly needed functionality and capability that had not been designed into the prior KPCIS system. No conflicts of interest were found at any level.

More than two dozen other health care organizations such as The Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Clinic, and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare have also fully adopted the same software solution. National surveys rate the Epic system as number one for both clinics and hospitals. As with the implementation of any new, large and complex system, such as KP HealthConnect(tm), some roll-out problems are to be expected. These problems are being addressed as they arise.

The employee was provided with a written response and then given the opportunity to provide any other information he might have regarding either technical or conflict-of-interest issues. He has not availed himself of that opportunity. He has also not made use of other appropriate channels, but has instead chosen to send a large, group message that clogs the email system.

As you are aware, there is a strict policy that prohibits the sending of broad distribution messages without the proper approvals. However, we always encourage employees to voice concerns through appropriate channels, including our confidential Compliance Hotline at 1-888-774-9100. Thank you.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Lon O'Neil's SEND-ALL
[info]corphq
2006-11-11 11:20 pm UTC (link)
This one is part of the second link above. I love how the HR weenie just asserts "as you are aware...".

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Holvarson's salary will remain the same next year?
(Anonymous)
2006-12-15 07:33 am UTC (link)
I learned today that Doctors' compensation next year will be reduced due to financial crunch, apparently related to the IT-cost overrun

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Holvarson's salary will remain the same next year?
[info]corphq
2006-12-15 04:58 pm UTC (link)
Where did you hear that? If there's a memo directly relating a cut in compensation to the whole IT mess, I'd love to post it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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