The Google alert system spotted this for me early this week. It has been around for a few days.
As I read I just became more and more amazed at the brazen spin I found myself reading.
Greg Johannes
Acting Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services - Tasmania
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
RESTRUCTURING TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTH
The Department of Health and Human Services is to restructure its use of information technology to improve services to patients and clients.
Acting Secretary Greg Johannes said the plan to restructure the DHHS Care and Business Solutions branch had been under discussion with staff and unions for several weeks.
The plan was further communicated to affected staff today and would be refined through consultation over coming weeks.
“There are a number of important national reforms being rolled out, and how we use information technology to enable eHealth will be a key part of making sure the reforms are successful.
“In order to play our part in reform, we need to make sure our use of information technology and associated staff resources is innovative and responsive to the needs of patients and clients.
“By its nature, information technology has to be cutting edge and innovative – so the staff structures we use should mirror that.
“The structural changes communicated today will help make our organisation more efficient and more sustainable, while delivering required budget savings.
Mr Johannes said staff and unions have been consulted through the review process.
“We have taken a measured and planned approach and will have a leaner structure that will focus on essential services for Tasmanians.
Mr Johannes said that the restructure mainly affected the Care and Business Solutions branch, which on the first of October 2011 employed 67 staff.
The new structure will see a net reduction in full-time equivalent positions of up to 42 positions.
The Care and Business Solutions branch has traditionally been responsible for project delivery and consultancy services across the Agency.
“It’s also important to bear in mind that some staff will be able to be transferred and others may leave voluntarily – so the final number of impacted staff is still to be determined.”
Mr Johannes said that the restructure also opened up a number of opportunities for staff which would be explored further.
“We anticipate that some current staff will not have a position in the new structure, and we will work hard to redeploy staff across the State Service as quickly as possible.”
The full release is found here:
Now let us parse what is actually being said here. The key points are:
1. We have taken the axe to our Care and Business Solutions Branch.
2. The reduction in staff will be 63% i.e. only 37% of the staff will remain.
3. These changes will make the Branch sustainable
4. We have decided to focus on essential services.
5. Losing 63% of our staff will save money and at the same time make everything more efficient.
There are only two conclusions that can be drawn from this. One is that the Branch was grossly overstaffed and management simply did not notice or two is that we are going to stop providing at least half the services we used to (implying they were not needed).
In a time when we are apparently seeing a transition to the use of more e-Health to try and preserve front line services and improve safety and efficiency this is a just appalling and more shockingly transparent piece of political spin.
No wonder the Minister does not have their name attached to such a stinking piece of rotten fish.
This was not a restructure - it is an out and out massacre!
David.
15 comments:
There are a few interesting dots to be joined down here:
DHHS has a new Chief Information Officer, Belinda Quinn.
She arrived from the NHS, without much external fanfare, after being picked by ex-Secretary David Roberts (also from the NHS)
This: http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/belinda-quinn/2/495/555 looks like Belinda's LinkedIn profile
Check out the health and IT components of her CV
Her main claim to fame seems to be this:
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2063687_hospital_it_team_made_redundant
Not sure where this is headed, but it doesn't look good!
I can hardly say I am surprised at the brutality that the story implies. Ms Quinn has a left a formidable trail of broken dreams and unhapyy staff in her wake in the UK. She has an almost pathological hatred for internal IT resources and rather than trying to manage through difficulties and coach and mentor a team she throws all the toys out of the sandpit on a regular basis. The project she was "leading" at Royal Berkshire Hospitals is a disaster with most clinicians refusing to engage or use the tools in their practice. The Trust is tied into outsourcing contracts it will be unable to afford and costs have overrun out of control as a result of mismanagement of the patient record project she was responsible for.
Nasty bit of work, a disgraceful misguided sad individual, obvious problems accepting her own mental and physical limitations, universally despised, regarded as unstable, yet she thrives, bless her. Voted "most likely" at the NHS to have her head shoved down a full toilet. She has the same people skills as Pol Pot, but without the subtle approach.
Sounds like you are describing the classic workplace bully otherwise described as an occupational psychopath.
This was the disaster that was anticipated in this blog. Having engineered the demolition of the existing IT business services team, Quinn left after a year having upset too many people. With the payouts to the existing staff to leave, her "restructure" would have cost dearly while at the same time robbing the organisation of years of corporate and IT project management knowledge. What is truly troubling is the lack of accountability for her actions and those that employed her. The new CIO is now rebuilding the structures and processes and although it's early days they have an eerie resemblance to what was there before. Clearly the previous managers knew what they were doing.
Grapevine says she is now in WA working on the Fiona Stanley project. Anyone know if that's true?
She has dropped off the radar. I see she stopped telling people she was a medical doctor after she moved to Oz but now she has deleted her LinkedIn profile. I wonder if anyone will ever catch up with her.
Quite apart from who wielded the axe there is "What is truly troubling is the lack of accountability for her actions and < those that employed her >." ....what kind of person brings in someone to carry out such actions?? And are they still in place?
I think this says it all: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-28/fiona-stanley-hospital-it-systems-continue-to-cause-problems/6654754
....and can you believe it.
https://pm.catapult.org.uk/news-events-gallery/news/dr-belinda-quinn-appointed-chief-executive-officer-precision-medicine-catapult/
wasting more tax payers money and delivering nothing...again....
Just looked at the link....awful news....
I'm shocked that the UK Government recruited her to such a high profile role given her awful reputation and track record both here is Aus and back in the UK.
Just read the press release.
The UK government clearly didn't check out her track record or reputation before hiring her. Belinda Quinn has left a trail of destruction here in Aus and also back in the UK. She hasn't delivered anything in any of her roles......just caused chaos and wasted millions....
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dr-belinda-quinn-appointed-chief-executive-officer-medicine-mcnamee
There is comment section at the bottom of the linkedin in announcement.
I note she has already turned out the original staff and relies exclusively on a wall of consultants that insulate her from outside and any actual hands on understanding of the personal medicine market place.
This woman is quite simply insane. She is ruining the chance for the UK to do anything in the precision medicine space. She is micromanaging her staff and not allowing them to contribute. She can't understand that the catapult is a delivery vehicle and not her personal private company. There is no doubt Innovate UK will pull funding and allow this opportunity to die. Better than having her ruin the Uks reputation in the meantime
I wonder if anyone's ever thought to check on her status as a medical doctor. She goes around asserting that she will be dashing to meetings from being in surgery, that she is late because she's just finished a ward round and so on. Funny thing is, she's not on the medical register, despite claiming on her CV to have obtained MB ChB Medicine in the UK in 1998.
Post a Comment