The comments keep coming. Check this:
He (Damore) 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.
The problem at Mission is the Board of Directors.
The Board of Directors is not representative of the community and never has been.
The current Board continues to condone the actions of a selfish, inept COO and all his cronies that either he, or the jerk that hired him, have now hand picked.
No one knows what the new CEO is about other than lecturing the entire hospital staff at 11PM about a news story on TV.
Rumors are that the new NC Legislature may take action on tax exempt boards. Hopefully that will happen for the sake of all North Carolina citzens.
K88
We were glad when he left Lansing Michigan He had the doctors constantly fighting amongst themselves He was a diservice to the community
So, JD has resigned and the search for a replacement begins.
Meanwhile, will the "professionals" mentioned here many times do the right thing and drop on their swords?
One can only hope.
After all, one wish has come true!
As an observer, it is not that JD ordered his name be removed from a certain scathing report that gives offence.
It is that the board followed the order without question.
Time for certain people in that room to search their conscience.
One thing is certain. The truth will leak out.
How will the members who sat silently look then?
when will the 60 page report be available to the community and the so called "investigative reporters" that are sa.id to be interested in the truth?? This may contain the crux of the problems outlined,hopefully truth,but could be a board whitewash.In reality, once again, I wish I had the liberty of investigating myself–what a deal–shows how far this has gone the wrong way.Hopefully I will be proven wrong.The medical community and particularly the MMH staff–nurses–know just how bad the intimidation,threats,terminations have been.The board is quiet at this point and that is bothersome.AC-T & WLOS have done a disservice to the community at large by not doing their duty.
This is one of the classic arguments against dissent, often heard in politics these days — if you object, you’re a "baby", or "Whining." You’re a troublemaker. A malcontent. The actions or personality you’re objecting to is necessary, and anyone who doesn’t understand that is immature, silly, has no credibility. (Usually followed by some kind of personal attack on the dissenter(s) — got to make them look bad, to make even legitimate objections suspect.) It’s a tried and true political technique. It’s a strange situation — the stereotype of surgeons and specialty docs being arrogant exists for a reason, so maybe there really was an overall feeling of others, of not minding some of them getting pushed around for a change. But here’s a chance for a world class medical facility in certain areas, and excellent regional health care, and what happened? The lack of regional cooperation is very telling, perhaps even more so than the dissenters’ stated objections. But as a skilled pol, the CEO will have reasonable-sounding excuses for that too. Skilled pols and manipulators prepare an answer for every possible objection, or to cover up their own failures, ahead of time.
"The whiney malcontent surgeons need to do their jobs or leave!"
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that it is in the hospital’s interest to make the doctors less happy. All this unrest makes practices more likely to dissolve (some have already) and makes them easier prey for the hospital to take over.
One board member has been quoted as saying: "why would we want the doctors to be efficient? if they’re less efficient, we have to pay less when we try to buy them"
IMHO that remark speaks volumes about the chaos that’s going on at Mission right now.
OK (MSR…see above a few postings), I get it. The guy at the top is always right, it’s always the surgeons’ fault, what hundreds of others inside have posted(conveniently ignored by you) has no bearing on anything, etc…
Sorry, but you’re either a Damore plant or clueless. With all that is out on the table, why don’t you just watch and see how this plays out, then if you ever have to go to Missions please share your thoughts with the nurses…or are they whiners too?
It’s all about people, people. Yes someone has to have the final say…but it’s how the options available have been developed that foretell the worth of the leader. He started failing in (about) 1991, For those interested, check it out. Problem was, nobody did…or those that did didn’t feel it necessary to share because JD convinced them it had been a plot against him. He’s very good at that.
Most of the insiders supportive of Damore that have posted that aren’t in the "fab five’"are recognizable. If he goes, will you stay to attempt to continue his policies? Please don’t…but if you do, we’ll be watching.
The writer who defends Damore indicating he should have a plan and should be in charge obviously is unfamiliar with how non-profit hospitals operate. You might be able to do that in a for profit business where you have "control" over many aspects of your business. In a non-profit hospital, the doctors do not work for you, they are "private practitioners." So it is incumbent on a NPO CEO to develop a very good and trusting relationship with these physicians as they are who admit the patients to your hospital. Damore’s style is to control those private practitioners not work with them. Many local groups have been threatened by him by saying "If you don’t become employed by Mission then we will just go out and recruit a group of specialists like you who will work for us." Nice way to build relationships and trust. Damore’s style has severely damaged Mission and the health care YOU,as a resident of Biltmore Lake, want to have available.
A lot of middle managers are already gone. I know because I was one. I had more than 30 years of exemplary service and still love this organization. I know I was bullied to leave and could not understand it. I ran afoul of one of the HR reps, and a director. Not one person stepped up to defend me. This was early in Joe Damore’s reign. I really never thought it had anything to do with him but perhaps I was mislead. The physicians had been the bullies so long that perhaps they needed to be reighned in. I guess from my prospecitve I find all the comments interesting but am not sure I think they are all true.
If the Hospital Board does not take the ultimate action needed here, to seek the resignations of Damore, Aston, Roloff and Ford, then they have made an historic decision to take Mission into mediocrity. If Damore stays then you will see a flight of middle managers, the people who really make Mission the quality place it is today, within 6-12 months. And the word will get out that Mission is a toxic place to work so the quality of candidates to replace these key managers will be mediocre or lower. I sincerely hope the Hospital Board understands the long term effects if they leave Damore in charge.
My family is going through Mission hell right now. Why isnt there a resident doctor to oversee a two month hospital stay? No one doctor to oversee a patient with many difficulties. Over 20 MDs, few who has studied the chart, the history, the diagnosis, and the all important missing diagnosis. This is a shock when we have had positive experiences in the past with Mission.
We have been to every ICU, Every stepdown, and most of the floors. One we fear getting put back on because they are too busy to properly care for someone middle aged and young enough not to be so ill.
Help us. please.
Mr Damore is entitled to have a plan, I would hope that he does.
He IS in control, that would be his JOB as CEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am a neighbor of his, and I am not aware that the ACT owner lives anywhere near here (I thought Gannett owned the ACT).
You folks may not agree with his plan, but he is in charge like it or not.
The whiney malcontent surgeons need to do their jobs or leave!
The Board is another question.I suspect there are 3 or 4 people there who may have the potential to grasp this situation The chairman is a businessman,wealthy and is a CPA basically–numbers.Folks,its more than numbers when health issues are at stake.The Board needs a stong,common sense person and the people on the board who recruited this fiasco need to get out of the picture.
Certainly agree with the failure of the over powering technique and the resulting dissolution of the health care network that we as physicians as well as the nursing and previous administration cultivated for three decades I was in practice.I had already cancelled my A-CT subscription but would like to re-cancel it,their failure to get involved in this debacle speaks to what a failure the paper has become to the WNC community.
"Assuming" the board acts and cleans house, there is work to be done. I think before we start talking about going national with this debacle, we need to assess the implications of doing so. An argument can be made that attracting that kind of attention may not be in the best interest of the hospital or community. The board by now knows what they did. There’s plenty of blame to go around. We could start wit a WLOS/AC-T roast, and also question why those that knew (outside the staff) did not act…but let’s think about keeping our dirty laundry close at hand. We have much to do here.
Go see the entire post under the "Ashvegas commentor: In all the hand-wringing at Mission Hospitals, remember the little people" While the condensed version was nice and piqued my interest it was worth finding the entire post and reading it. The additional comment under that post was also helpful!
The only other point I will add to Anon’s truthful and accurate summation is the regional debacle. Joe Damore took the attitude of overpowering the region in order to control it as well. Regional leaders, fed-up with his bullying and condescending attitude broke relations with Mission, relations nurtured and developed formerly by David Spillers and Sonya Greck who believed in helping the regional facilities and providing support, rather than crushing them into submission. Outcome of course is Haywood and WestCare’s alignment with Carolinas. I would bet my bank that Transylvania does not align with Mission either. Interesting because prior to our current administration, we had affiliation aggreements with over 14 regional facilities. It was a very unique and often benchmarked relationship admired and copied by other states.
To recap my knowledge, since the arrival of the Toxic Team we have lost,
The Region
Staff Satisfaction and Morale has bottomed out
Physician Relationships which were strong under our previous administrators is in the tubes.
Joint Ventures and Partnership for the good of the community are not being developed.
I am also assuming that the reason AC-T is no longer interested in doing investigative reporting for the good of the community it serves is due to the fact that Mr. Damore and the owner of AC-T are friends and neighbors – next door neighbor and good buddies.
Thank you AC-T for you unbiased approach – my subscription is being cancelled.
Ashevegas you are sincerely appreciated for letting us finally speak out. Do you think 60 Minutes would like to see what this is all about? If not them, Charlotte or Greenville.
Anonn
The commenter says, "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."
Are there any real journalists left in town?
finally some detailed informaiton we can actually understand and investigate on our own!
If the Board does not take sufficient action to remedy these series of self-inflicted disasters, how do we fire our board? At the very least, the Chairman…who by his lack of leadership has allowed this farce to continue. I would suggest we try to hire Tim Johnson back from Sisters of Mercy. He would be such a breath of fresh air after the last 5 years, and honest,too. Just Thinking….
This post is amazingly accurate. Joe Damore came to Mission with a plan to change the hospital to match what he had created in Michigan. How many times have we heard "this is the way we did it in Lansing" during his five long years? He came in thinking Mission was "broken" and needed him to fix it—WRONG!!! For nearly a decade before his arrival Mission was winning awards and getting national recognition from The Commonwealth Fund and others. Mission needed some "tweaking" to make it even better, but not the wholesale slaughter Damore has brought. There is NO EXC– — USE for how he has operated—this post is correct–he has been slowly and methodically instituting HIS PLAN which places HIM in control. NO DOUBTS!