In the days since the Washington Post first reported on the incidents of reprehensible conditions at the Walter Reed National Army Medical Center, the intense and growing spotlight on problems there has brought assurances that the problems will be corrected. Significantly, the level of (forced) transparency the Post brought to the situation has led to swift and unprecedented accountability.
In December, I wrote about the leadership role the Veterans Health Administration’s Hospitals have played in healthcare information technology. Regrettably, there are many who go to great lengths to assert that advancing new information technology systems are a cure for all that ails healthcare. Walter Reed proves that the best computer systems can mean little to families if the primary care is impaired.
There is a telling side story to the Washington Post article (which was investigated and written by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dana Priest). Leading up to the Post’s planned printing of the story, Priest submitted a list of questions to officials at the VA, allowing them the opportunity to offer an official response to be included in the story. Rather than respect the original reporter’s work on the story, Walter Reed chose to call a press conference to spin the issues and attempt to preempt the Post’s story.
Walter Reed’s lack of accountability, poor delivery of care, out of touch administration, and focus on media relations (instead of healthcare) have startling, and there are alarming and disappointing similarities to the model George Halvorson designed at HealthPartners in Minnesota, the model he has nakedly applied to Kaiser Permanente over the past five years.
In the first days after the media began reporting on my November 3 memo, Kaiser Permanente first responded that there had been no problems whatsoever with HealthConnect, and that the financial issues were insignificant. Similar to the situation at Walter Reed, HealthConnect had received largely flattering media mentions prior to November 3.
As growing evidence of significant HealthConnect outages became public, our public affairs department began fashioning a new message that all the problems were magically solved on November 3. And, as Halvorson was forced to acknowledge the tenuous financial state of Kaiser Permanente, the organization began taking even more desperate steps to cut costs to hide the true problems the organization faces over the coming years. More recently, Andrew Wiesenthal and Bruce Turkstra have come to claim that our internal reports that clearly outlined HealthConnect jeopardizing patient safety were incorrect. Regrettably, I can assure you that those incidents were not documented lightly, or inaccurately.
Just as in November, there is growing evidence of a failure of our organization under George Halvorson. Kaiser Permanente continues to suffer embarassing blows to our reputation as the result of desperate, heartless mandates to cut costs, at all costs. My colleagues, our physicians and nurses, our patients, and our members deserve better, just like our veterans.
on Mar 6th, 2007 at 07:29
What if you, Justen, did not have a calling to write?
Would Kaiser have volunteered information about dangers to patients?
Keep it up. You are an inspiration. You save lives. Darrell
on Mar 7th, 2007 at 01:03
Justen,
You have provided an important service to patients everywhere. Each violation of patient safety and a patient’s and healthcare worker’s rights is trivialized by the perpetrators, but when the events are gathered, the impact is substantial…if only if everyone who witnesses or experiences such problems has even one half of your level of courage would publicly report them, it would add formidable leverage to this cause, which in effect, is everyone’s cause. It has been suggested that patient adversity from the IT devices be reported at FDA.gov.
As you have stated, and as was corrorborated by Post reporter Priest, it is a waste of time to report any violation to those who would spin the reality to protect themselves and hide the errrors.
Those who can, should step up and help Justen and this cause.
Best regards,
Menoalittle
on Mar 7th, 2007 at 01:04
Justen,
You are so right.
As a reminder to all who read this, please report all situations in which patient safety has been compromised and all patient injury, as related to the use of these IT dvices, to the FDA at FDA.GOV.
This is very important to support Justen’s cause and to prevent the whitewash from KP admin.
Best regards,
Menoalittle
on Apr 21st, 2007 at 00:20
Justen,
Wow! I’m so glad you have this website set up. Ever since we heard about the incidences you helped to bring to light last year, we in Northern California Kaisers, have been watching to see what happens next.
Unfortunately, it’s not good. Nothing’s changed for the better. Halverson issued a statement after they put you on administrative leave and stated that you were young and misled. He’s wrong!
He just seems to be pissed off that somebody “blew the whistle”. Hey, isn’t there a law protecting people like that? However, when money exchanges hands easily, it’s not suspect to find that facts and information become eternally hidden.
HELP US!!!
on Apr 24th, 2007 at 20:37
I work at a northern California Kaiser. I was not surprised when I read your e-mail. I am not surprised that they trumped up charges to fire you.I have seen this before, but proving it is another story. It has been tried on me before, I just am better at documentation than my manager. I am also a union member and that has protected me some. I do not know what other programs are out there for online medical records, but it seems to me that in this day and age, it should be easier to add outside records. It seems to me that this program should be able to read PDF files and incorporate them as part of the record when needed. To have to send everything to the scanning center and have it practically unreadable because of poor scans is a colossal waste of time and money. I have seen so much waste at Kaiser. Most of the management that I have observed are penny wise and pound foolish. I get tired of being told to suck it up and help Kaiser save money when they constantly waste money on every turn.