Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Public Information

Well all of a sudden the bean counters and temps running the medical center want to share information. The many million dollar “plan” is now public, available on CD. Digital documents, impressive! Well if you can’t save lives you can at least save a tree. Maybe Cambio Health Solutions consultants are closeted tree huggers.

“The plan” is not completely without merit but it is humorless. It consists of mostly numbers on paper. These guys can make some real contributions to getting bills posted and paid. It’s when they start to dismember patient services where they get kind of scary. But what about the “secret data?” Well, a nurse with a nose for numbers read through the whole report. According to Lynn, “consultants are like slugs, they leave a trail”, buried in the pages of electronic prose she found a reference to a book. The reference got her online where voila! She found that “proprietary healthcare data” could be purchased for $500 dollars. Five hundred dollars to 3.2 millions dollars (consulting fees paid by the medical center), in sales that’s called an excellent mark up.

What about the rest of the medical center’s brain trust, the authority board? Well they’re meeting away. The authority board is the county supervisor’s answer to Jerry Springer. In an effort to discourage public participation meetings are announced at the last moment and get crammed into small hot meeting rooms, Sheriff Plummer and his merry men flank the members. The last public meeting had 4 commanders, four uniformed sheriffs and Mr. P himself. County bureaucrats, the consultants and the executive temps try to fill the room so that community members and staff won’t fit. Board member Irene Weinreb does an excellent judge Judy impression, she wrestles the gavel from other trustees and threatens to clear the room and the president of the Alameda county board of supervisors, Gaile Steele power knits throughout the proceedings.

Though highly entertaining the authority board has no real power, the county supervisors get to make all the real decisions (most of them bad.) So what are these four fearless democrats doing about this mess? If you were a liberal democrat like Nate Miley, Keith Carson, Alice Lai-Bitker or Gail Steele what would you do? Clearly the public wants and needs a public hospital; in fact they’re willing to pay for it. Clearly there’s a vacuum of leadership the size of Texas and the supervisors and their staff are being flooded with concerned calls and letters about the dangers of implementing “ the plan.” Fortunately the real financial crisis ended with Measure, “A” which put the hospital quite close to break even, so the radical service cuts could easily be avoided. The supervisors could easily appoint some new board members, stop the service cuts, and move toward bringing in some permanent management, executives that understand hospital operations, as well as staff cuts and collections. So what have these dazzling democrats actually done? Well mostly they’ve been dodging phone calls and avoiding pulic meetings. The only decisive move taken recently has been to raise the medical center’s rent by close to two million dollars!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

WELL THATS ONE GOOD WAY OF CLOSING THE HOSPITAL, DON'T PAY THE RENT. I TRY TO
TELL EVERYBODY, THAT MEASURE A WAS A PLOT IN OTHER WORDS SMOKE SCREEN TO GET MONEY TO SAVE THE MEDICAL CENTER, BUT THE INTENTIONS WERE NOT THERE. THE PLAN WAS TO CLOSE THE MEDICAL CENTER, WHICH IS COSTING THE TAX PAYER ADDITIONAL SALES TAX OUT OF THEIR POCKET TO HELP A CORRUPTED SYSTEM. WELL WE JUST NEED TO SEND CAMBIO TO JERRY SPRINGER ALONG WITH BOARD SUPERVISORS AND TRUSTEES. MAY BE THEY GET A WHELM OF EACH OTHER AND START BEATING EACH OTHER LIKE THEY STOLE SOMETHING. GET IT LIKE THEY STOLE SOMETHING, AND LET THE MEDICAL CENTER RUN ITS SELF. I THINK ITS TIME TO GET THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INVOLVE AND HAVE A GOOD PROPOSAL TO LET THE MEDICAL RUN ITSELF, AND LEAVE OUTSIDERS,BOARD OF TRUSTEE AND POLITICIAN BUMPS OUT OF THE PICTURE UNLESS THEY BECOME A PATIENT. THE MEDICAL CENTER WILL SAVE A LOT OF MONEY, AND SAVE JOBS TO WITH OUT THE CORRUPTED SYSTEM. THE PATIENT WILL GAIN, AND THE TAXPAYERS WILL BE MORE SUPPORTED TO THE CAUSE OF MEASURE A. I KNOW THIS IS NOT A REAL, BUT I BELEIVE THINGS ARE GOING TO WORST SO HOLD ON TO YOUR HAIR,WIG,WEAVE,TOUPEE BECAUSE WE THE MEDICAL CENTER IS GOING TO BALD.

Anonymous said...

Hey guess what Cambio, your secret info on BENCHMARKS will soon be copied and passed on to the masses. Look for the posting near you. I suppose since you are only motivated by profit you get to sleep well at night and would never imagine that Dorothy, Toto and company would see behind the cutain of the great Wizard. Well, we did. We don't sleep at night because we actually care about the living breating uninsured people we care for on a daily basis. We don't wear ugly suits and shiny shoes and hide behind the fancy list of degrees we carry behind our name. As I have said before NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE MASSES WHO HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT THEIR JOBS!!!!!!! We have only begun to fight so here is my humble advice to CAMBIO, increase your liability insurance and sleep well.

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