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English

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Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of a hospital? Read on and you will discover how one hospital system managed through the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
Undoubtedly, many readers have seen what goes at hospitals, and know of the struggles that patients have getting care and battling with the insurance companies. This book reveals what goes on behind the scenes where no one can see, except the few that experience it and have the personal fortitude to tell the story.

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Fiction

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Publié par	AuthorHouse
Date de parution	16 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665558600
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

HOSPITAL FROM HELL
NORMAN PRESTON

AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: 833-262-8899

© 2022 Norman Preston. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/27/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5859-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-5861-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-5860-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022908239

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CONTENTS
Introduction

Chapter 1 Background
Chapter 2 Week 1: Monday
Chapter 3 Week 1: Tuesday
Chapter 4 Week 1: Wednesday am
Chapter 5 Week 1: Wednesday Afternoon
Chapter 6 Week 1: Wednesday Evening
Chapter 7 Week 1: Thursday
Chapter 8 Week 1: Friday
Chapter 9 Week 1: Weekend
Chapter 10 Week 2: Monday
Chapter 11 Week 2: Tuesday
Chapter 12 Week 2: Wednesday
Chapter 13 Week 2: Thursday
Chapter 14 Week 2: Friday
Chapter 15 Week 2: Friday Evening
Chapter 16 Week 2: Weekend
Chapter 17 Week 3: Monday
Chapter 18 Week 3: Tuesday
Chapter 19 Week 3: Wednesday
Chapter 20 Week 3: Thursday
Chapter 21 Week 3: Friday
Chapter 22 Week 3: Weekend
Chapter 23 Week 4: Monday
Chapter 24 Aftermath

This book is dedicated to my loving wife Lisa who put up with me during these 20 plus years of marriage.
INTRODUCTION
As many of you readers know, the American health care system has deteriorated to the point of embarrassment. Other industries, such as technology and retailers, can even do health care better than the vast majority of health care companies. It’s so bad that many people are shying away from being doctors and nurses. As a result, you might be surprised to learn that doctors and nurses make up the vast minority of health care workers!
Briefly, the health care system in America consists of four major players. The first, and the one that is mostly demonized, are the pharmaceutical companies. These are the people who develop, test and market drugs. The chief complaint about these companies are their drugs cost too much, followed by the drugs don’t work, and (my personal favorite) they test these on animals.
The second player are the patients. Much work has been done in the industry to try to treat a patient like a consumer, which more or less means that the patient is asked to fill out countless satisfaction questionnaires. Of course, these just get compiled, tallied, and are used as a basis to fire hospital staff should the right time come about.
The third player are the insurance companies. They’re usually called “the payers”. They’ll come off as being on the patient’s side since they are looking after the financial well-being of the patient by making sure only the most necessary procedures and medications are being administered. The basic complaint against the insurance companies are just that - if they would actually look out for the patient, all would be well. Instead, they usually just focus on ways in which they could shave some expenses off of a visit to the doctor or hospital.
The fourth player are the hospitals. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are now referred to as “providers” as in they provide the actual care at the direction of the insurance company using the products that are created by the pharmaceutical companies in the hopes that the patient gets better and has a fantastic time during treatment.
This book is about the hospitals and my own experiences in trying to fix what I perceive to be a flawed system.
CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND
Prior to being employed by the Hospital from Hell (referred to as “the Hospital” for the rest of the book), I had worked for all of the other major players in healthcare. I thought I was doing some great career management by gaining experience from all the players, and then I could get that one really good job. So, when my work at the insurance company got boring, I decided to start talking to recruiters to see what was going on.
By trade, I’m a data scientist, which means that I study data and try to find patterns that can be used to improve patient care. These patterns might be anything from understanding what type of patient might better respond to a particular treatment to seeing which patients might decide to use the emergency room as their own personal physician (as opposed to making an appointment).
At that time, many companies were starting large data science teams to better understand what the customer wants so the company can sell more products. I had no interest in working at these companies because I felt that health care was in the greatest need of data scientists. So, I stuck to waiting for the right opportunity in a hospital to come along.
Most of the recruiters had no positions at all for almost 2 years. Then, one day, a recruiter called me with this fantastic job at the Hospital. It had good pay and benefits and was no more than a half of mile from where I was working now. So, I sent in my resume and had the usual round of interviews the following week.
Evidently they were really eager to hire someone. They had been looking for a director of data science and analytics for almost a year. I had more than the qualifications they needed and from the time of my first interview with the hiring manager to the offer letter was two weeks. It was by far the fastest I’ve ever been hired to do anything. It was a hot job market, and I could’ve gotten a job anywhere, except I was looking for something very specific.
During the interview, it was stressed to me that my major focus was to build the data science department at the hospital from the ground up. I would have a lot of autonomy in deciding how big the team would need to be, what sort of projects would need to be done, and who I would need to hire to get the projects done.
I remember thinking to myself that this might be that one big job that I was looking for. They seemed to have the money and desire to support a data science team so I wouldn’t have to try to convince the senior leaders that they needed data science in their organization. So, I quit my job at the insurance company and went to work for the Hospital.
The Hospital, on the surface, was like any other office job, and seemed to be very typical of other hospitals. Most hospitals are actually part of a system of loosely connected hospitals. These hospitals would band together in order to increase their leverage when negotiating prices for drugs and medical supplies as well as negotiating reimbursements from insurance companies. The Hospital was a system of around 20 hospitals and I would be working at the corporate office.
What intrigued me about the Hospital was that it was funded and managed by several congregations of the Catholic Church. This meant that these congregations would donate money to the Hospital, who was charged with wisely using that money to heal people in the name of Jesus Christ, Mary, and Saint Damian (a patron saint of physicians).
So, going into my first day at work had me feeling very good about the Hospital. I was out to improve patient care using data science, and the Hospital wanted to heal people. What could go wrong?
CHAPTER 2

WEEK 1: MONDAY
Normally, the first day of any job is spent with the good people in Human Resources. These so-called orientation meetings generally range from the mundane tasks of signing up for benefits such as medical and dental insurance to full-blown brainwashing as to why whatever company is the best around. The Hospital’s orientation was closer to the latter. In this case, the Hospital saw itself as Jesus’ hospital and the Hospital was doing Jesus’ work. The rest of the time was just commentary.
The two-hour morning session was spent going over scripture verses and quotes from prominent Catholic leaders, the history of the Catholic Church with a concentration on health care throughout the centuries, and a 1-hour visit from the CEO to let us all know how important our future work will be.
After the morning session, we are supposed to be picked up by our respective supervisor. My new supervisor didn’t show up. Instead, I was picked up by an assistant who told me that Callie was too busy to come get me, so she was sent instead. She led me to Callie’s office. Callie invited me in to talk, and talk she did. For a full two hours (from ten o’clock until noon), she did nothing but talk. Unfortunately, the things she said made me instantly regret leaving the comforts of the insurance company.
Her name was Callie, and she told me she had a 20-year career doing analytics, but it was time for her to move on in her career. She hired me to do the analytics work that she had put behind her. She told me all about how her and her wife decided to move to a place that was more friendly toward her. Callie explained that it was hard for her to make friends or to relate to people, and that