Healthcare Giant Faces IT Nightmare

Joan writes "Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the U.S., has spent about $4 billion on an unreliable electronic medical record system that is impacting patient care, according to a 722-page internal report revealed by Computerworld. The CIO resigned after the news came out, and CEO George Halvorson is telling the media that the goal is an alarmingly low 99.5% uptime and that all the problems are really just power outages. Yesterday, Slashdot covered a story about the possibility that the NHS in the UK could now claim the 'biggest IT disaster' prize, but Americans, fear not: so far, the Brits are running a much more efficient failure at $24,000 per physician per year, while America's KP is spending $76,920 per physician, per year on its failing project."

Comments

Re:News came out

[stevesliva]

See here [fixkp.org] for details.

Sounds kind of personal-- straightforwardly asking the board to fire these guys:

More explicitly, the decisions made by George Halvorson and J. Clifford Dodd since their joining this organization have fundamentally undermined our financial and market positions. Within two years, we will face the risk of a financial meltdown that would change the face of Kaiser Permanente as we know it. Instead of irresponsible cuts to our staffing, benefits, and care, we must take immediate action to bring efficiency and responsibility to our information technology operations. Many of the technology vendors and platforms which have been chosen and approved by Mr. Halvorson and Mr. Dodd are unreliable and costly. Unfortunately, these questions of financial responsibility and business integrity are not new:

• Mr. Halvorson left the health plan he previously led, HealthPartners, in the midst of what, we would later learn, was an audit by the Minnesota Attorney General. The Attorney General uncovered years of financial irresponsibility and waste, and ultimately concluded that the HealthPartners Board of Directors provided inadequate oversight of Mr. Halvorson and other HealthPartners executives.
• Mr. Dodd "invited" and oversaw the selection of Tanning Technology to "help ensure that the technical performance of Kaiser Permanente's Automated Medical Record (AMR) initiative meets the goals of the organization." Mr. Dodd later resigned as a director of that company "to avoid even the appearance of conflict."

Epic Systems.. not too bright... H-1B's..

[FirstOne]

You get what you pay for..

From 1999 to 2001 they applied for and were granted LCA's for 230 H-1B's..
Top H-1B wage 62,000 (2).. lowest wage 31,000(10) average wage ~38,000..
Add in another 56 LCA's for green cards(1999-2000).. top wage 60,500 average wage ~40,000.

Note: The Zazona.com database stopped collecting LCA records back in 2002..

Here is a link to Madison Wisconsin Blog about Epic Systems.. read it and be informed..

Re:well this obviously can't be right

[Korin43]

Your argument has two problems: 1. A perfect communist government would still fail. 2. The more capitalist a nation is, the more prosperous it is (you don't need to have a completely capitalist nation to see it's effects).