The comments keep coming:
To sit back and take a look at where we have come and how we got here is disturbing to say the least. The constant finger pointing has morphed into a huge snowball rolling downhill and the momentum comes from the same tired, boring place it always does…It appears in every workplace, school, church and sometimes at family gatherings… belief that somehow, someone else is responsible for my unhappiness. Oh how people love to complain about their pitiful lives and are resolute in their commitment to not do a thing about their situation.
Have we not progressed enough to understand that our happiness is not determined by Joe Damore or the physicians or anyone else for that matter? If you don’t like working at Mission then why are you putting yourselves through the anguish you describe? Quit! If you are convinced that Mission is a ship destined to run aground because of it’s crazy captain – then abandon ship before it hits the reef! Do everyone else a favor, save yourself!
Moral at Mission is not low. It is only low in the people it is always low in. The same 4% of overall hospital staff that fill out 90% of the employee satisfaction surveys completed. Everyone knows these people. They would not be happy winning the lottery because they had to pay taxes on the winnings…Their moral is low. Who cares?
It is amazing to me that the mountains surrounding this tiny town have so blinded us to what is going on in the world today that we actually think that removing the present administration at Mission Hospitals is going to make everything all better. Why? Why would that make it all better? Don’t you remember when there were problems with the past administration…and the one before that?
I have an idea – why not start with you as a place to initiate change? Take some responsibility for it instead of expending so much creative energy trying to drill someone else to the wall. Mission Hospitals is this lumbering behemoth of an organization and like most healthcare organizations it has been a very sloppily run business and a lot of misdirected expectations and bad habits have formed as a result.
I’ve watched for years as the hospital has continued to hemorrhage money… Now it is being forced into an agile state so it can be competitive – not in a local market but in a national market. The nurse to patient ratio at Mission Hospitals is smaller than one would find with many of our competitors – including Carolinas. You want to tell me there will be better patient care when we are having to take care of 6+ patients a piece? C’mon, do your homework I Healthcare is just being forced to catch up with what corporate America has been doing for decades. Talk about shoddy leadership!
I believe the present administration understands what it is going to take to obtain the flexibility to maintain our viability in the immediate future. I think they do have our interests at heart despite our “eat our young” mentality. Tough times require tough decisions and sometimes those decisions “trim the fat” in a much needed way. For someone to assume that experienced staff was fired for no reason or because they were being paid more, is ludicrous.
Do you think that person’s privacy should be breached so everyone knows that they were fired because they had 18 absences? Do you really believe that the hospital was getting rid of experienced professionals and replacing them with inexperienced people who could be paid less? C’mon…it would cost a heck of a lot more money to pay for the lawsuits the hospital would have lost due to that inexperience. Think about it…!
The present leadership at Mission hospitals is far from perfect and continued work needs to be done to regain the trust needed between physicians and the hospital administration. Please remember all of us little people that are caught in the middle….we are the ones that have to listen to our neighbors, friends and families discussing this. It is embarrassing to witness because, to them, I am Mission Hospitals. Whether the players like it or not it is a symbiotic relationship.
While everyone is busy peeing on trees as the fire grows larger, please don’t lose sight of how this is effecting the community you have all sworn to serve…the community all of you are a part of.
12 Comments
I was never one of those complaining employees and lived and breathed for Mission Hospital. I was a middle manager. I was not fired but I was made to feel so uncomfortable that I left on my own. I went to work for national health system and now feel valued. The difference in the organizations astonded me. I worked for Mission for more than 30 years. The last few years have been the best of my life.
ANON 27 AUG is right on target except for the feeling I have that the search committee that founded this mess by hiring JD in the first place knew what they wanted–to bring the entire health care system under the control of Mission.The folks JD fired in management are running successfully a larger hospital system in Huntsville AL. recently given great national recognition.The culprits who were on the search committee at that time are still on the Board–do you think they will recuse themselves (HA).This Board is mainly composed of affirmative "yes"nodders who have been spoon fed what the administration wants them to know.Asheville Cardiology will be on the salary of MMH in 2010–something I totally fail to comprehend–also MMH bought their building as part of the deal–and they say they are not planning to take over the area?? Get serious! I agree this type of change is going on all over but to put ones practice and service at the beck and call of this bunch passes over my head.Some groups are already trying to deal with Carolinas–good for them.
OK. I keep waiting to see this all pulled together! However, it seems as though we are destined to face a daily search through the blogs for new information. It is getting frustrating! I do appreciate this venue and the author’s efforts but I think we need a summation. I am neither a reporter nor a writer but I am going to try my hand at some form of an overview.
Let’s see….we know that the board did NO due diligence when hiring Joe Damore. The board allowed Joe Damore to fire all of the leadership staff that had made the hospital great and had any type of true leadership skills, institutional memory, or commitment to this community.
Next, Joe Damore was allowed to hire his group of lackeys, starting with Brian Aston, so he could gain control through these new people by giving them a VP title and a huge salary. And don’t forget these were people who had "worked" with him or his other “new hires” before and had little or NO clinical experience. He reorganizes the hospital and places these people into positions where he can begin to control every major department such as Heart Services, Laboratory, Radiology, Support Services, and of course physician services. And for those seeking "facts" or "evidence" of this "takeover" just look at how many times the organizational chart changed over the past three years! Then take a further step back and view the current organizational chart versus the chart four years ago. It is astounding how many more non-clinical VP’s it takes to run Mission today!
Now the next part of his plan was not a part of the hospital but really more of an infiltration of the community looking for the seats of power that he needed to solidify his position. I will have to leave this part of the story to someone who understands his bullying as it related to gaining seats on the chamber of commerce, control of the local newspaper and television, etc..
Now he is ready to control the "final frontier"….THE PHYSICIANS!
Joe Damore began with the cardiology group. He starts to divide and conquer. Joe Damore pulls key physicians within the group aside and begins to fill their heads with "delusions of grandeur." He promises them fortune and fame under his "skillful" guidance. Unfortunately, some of the physicians didn’t see this until it was too late.
Now let us look at his treatment of the employed physicians such as the trauma surgeons. First let me tell you what I know of why these types of physicians are historically employees of a hospital rather than just a contracted physician group like the surgeons, cardiologists, and radiologists. As noted in several of the posts on this blog these physicians work incredibly long hours both in the hospital, and on call. It is not a lucrative practice but one that a physician with a strong heart and will to good for a community will decide to undertake. However, the reason that they are employees is because this is an area where a revenue stream is difficult to predict or maintain. The hospital gains downstream revenue from these types of services and so therefore they subsidize or hire these types of physicians.
He began to develop his now infamous medical office building, MOB, plan. He recruits one of the largest orthopedics groups "Blue Ridge Bone and Joint" to head up the faux recruitment for this disaster by promising them the best floors, equipment, and all kinds of other perks! It takes them a while but they finally catch on that this is just another one of Joe Damore’s schemes. And let’s not forget how much money Joe Damore wasted on the planning and architecture of this MOB plan!
Let’s move onto the Cancer Center.
Now here is a plan that actually makes sense and is driven by both local physicians and the oncology groups. It also has the backing of valid data as to the need for this type of facility in the community. Alas, he has now waited so long to "allow" the board to approve the funds that we have lost our timing and momentum. The oncology groups were tired of the miscommunication and delays and at least one began to build their own center. Joe Damore did manage to keep "Cancer Centers of America" out of the running through the use of CON laws. The saga of this cancer center is far from over.
Another note of interest though is the same theme of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on planning, and design, by Joe Damore on these projects. It appears that he is spreading around Missions wealth to his political advantage. Joe Damore spreads OUR money around to "consultants" to tell us what OUR OWN CLINICAL LEADERS could, and would, have told him. Two great examples of the "consultant" debacles are the medical office building project of the month and the constantly delayed ED consolidation project! However, I am sure there are many others if the board were to investigate.
I want to end this by remarking on the "restructuring" of the middle management tier. The clinical leaders who were trying to develop action plans to reassess the needs within their departments, (to meet the changing healthcare environment) were prime targets! They had begun to make the difficult changes needed at the patient care level which would enable Mission to react to the inevitable changes in healthcare. It is foolish to think that clinical leaders do not work everyday to stay on top of changes in their areas that will affect both patients and the hospitals financial health. These highly experienced and qualified clinical leaders do not wait for some vice president to tell them what they are researching and reading daily in their own professional health journals! The directors and managers were working to meet the new outside "benchmark" goals that Joe Damore and Brian Aston had set as a critical path to their financial success. These clinical leaders were spending countless hours arguing with their new VP’s or the outside benchmarking consultants in an effort to attain some realism to these ridiculous metrics. The clinical leaders understood the need for this reality check since no two hospitals provide the same levels or types of services. Not to mention that the community demographics vary widely with these types of benchmarking programs. In the end the clinical leaders who did not “perform” were “invited” to leave the organization. The rest were either humiliated or bullied into taking the action mandated by their VP or HR representative. Sad but true!
There is so much more to this five year story and I hope that someone more qualified will take the time to research and develop a well written article about the Mission saga so that others may learn from our mistakes.
I spoke geek-to-geek to a Mission computer person who said that this site, Ashvegas, was now in the blocked list for Mission URLs. Congratulation, Jason, you’ve been censored somewhere!
And thanks to PhotographyFan for the kudos!
As a person who is generally thought of as a very positive,loving and supportive type, I take offense in the notion that the only people complaining here are a minority who are always unhappy. That just is not true. Some of the finest and most professional nurses and other staff members have been treated very poorly of late, and actually have no voice in the matter. There is no one to go to.
We continue to give wonderful patient care, even if we are extremely stressed by the current climate where we work. There is a fear factor operating at Mission which is very bad for "morale"..(.not "moral"). In the difficult arena of healthcare, we should be kind to each other as well as our patients. What ever happened to the idea that supportive leadership equals employees who feel empowered, cared about and happy. The staff satisfaction survey will tell the tale..if it is deliivered to us in it’s original form.
I get the chance to see and speak to many different people in all kinds of roles at Mission and it is my opinion that staff satisfaction is in the toilet. Interesting why the staff satisfaction results have yet to be shared across the Hospital. The Toxic Team did not fare well, that’s why. Everyone who supports current Administration needs to know that King Damore is a marvel at "spin." If you believe what he says then you haven’t done your homework. Why do you think it has taken five years for the Board to discover the damage?
All I have to say is where’s the UNION!!!!! This would not be happening we would not be bullied around….
I can hardly reply.. comment on this original post. I am, without a doubt, a little person at Mission. I understand what I am responsible for and what I cannot control – I do not strive to live in drama nor to see others tormented. And that’s why I post and am concerned, I have witnessed too many employees of Mission who are committed to patient care, value MERIT be tormented and then cast out or forced to take a lower position, or have to reapply for a job they have been performing only to be eliminated. HR won’t release the staff satisfaction results because they have to find a way to put a spin on how many employees don’t trust Leadership and their answers follow the main theme of all the Mission-related posts – a fear-driven and intimidation based Leadership/Administration should not be tolerated, it should be completely investigated, exposed and promptly removed. It’s just pathetic that it’s taken this long – it took a valued physician to leave for Mission’s board to be FORCED to look into this matter. That fact alone is pathetic and at some point Mission’s Board better answer why they weren’t paying attention.
This comment clearly comes from someone who lacks maturity and an understanding of group dynamics and leadership.
The commenter should know the type of situation at Mission being discussed here certainly does not occur at every workplace. That’s why it’s so important and has been attracting so much attention. To dismiss it as an everyday occurance is foolish and a grave mistake.
From comments here and discussions elsewhere the problems at Mission started with the arrival of Joe Damore and are centered around his management style and decisions. It logically follows that’s what needs to be fixed. It might not be the only thing that needs fixing, but it would be absurd to start problem solving anywhere else.
If moral is not low, why has this become a big issue in this community? People involved –the ‘complainers’ if you will, see a grave threat to our community if quality and service at Mission continues to decline as a result of the ‘people’ problems at Mission.
And to your petulant question ‘who cares?” I do. And clearly lots of people inside and outside Mission care.
Your suggestion that those who are unhappy should simply quit is childish.
Your question: Do you really believe that the hospital was getting rid of experienced professionals and replacing them with inexperienced people who could be paid less? I believe it. it happens. I once was part of a management team for whom this was a corporate strategy.
I was unhappy about it. I quit. (And moved to Asheville!)
Gosh, Zen’s photography is beautiful!
Speaking as a "little" person…hahahahahahah….I can say that we haven’t seen the results of the staff satisfaction survey yet which leaves me to wonder if this propaganda came from HR. Although morale (which I believe is what you were referring to, not "moral") has plummeted to it’s lowest levels in the fifteen years I have been employed at mission I have to say since JD’s administration has been exposed for what it is I’m seeing morale start to creep back up. Please do not underestimate the "little persons" intelligence, tenacity and commitment to the patients and families we care for.
Yes! Improve the current climate of unrest and complaints of unfairness by leaving! That’s the ticket. A good quitter’s attitude will help others who aren’t as quick to jump ship will improve the outlook on their – what was it? – pitiful lives. Good to hear someone point the finger at the finger pointers and point out that their finger pointing doesn’t do any good. It only helps if you point at the right people, apparently.
I believe that this dialog has been a good thing. Air the laundry and then help to wash it. No, the current hospital administration isn’t the whole of the problem, but neither are the finger-pointers. It all needs to be out in the open and everyone’s position – including the reasonable profiteers – heard.