KentuckyOne Health employee subject to non-disclosure agreement.
I went to the Kentucky State fair last week. I had missed the last two or three years. I like to walk through the various exhibits, see the animals, and get my yearly dose of lamb-sandwich and fried dough. Mostly I like to share the pride of all the people, especially the children, who bring their prized animals and goods to the fair. I go during the daytime, but it must be quite a scene at night. All the food you could eat (but shouldn’t) and all the beer you need to wash it down. I passed on what must have been a delicious doughnut burger.
Fortunately, a number of Louisville’s hospitals, health insurance companies, and public health entities had exhibits inside. My medical advice is that people have their cholesterol and blood pressure checked before they venture onto the food midway. A variety of free health screenings were available with plentiful offers to do more expensive screenings back at home base. Promoting screenings is a time-tested way to entice people through the doors of us healthcare providers. No doubt everyone who shows up for these presumably essential life-saving screenings will be taken care of regardless of their ability to pay– right?
KentuckyOne Health had a big booth. Its star attraction was a gigantic inflatable heart that you could walk through. Another institution that was touting screenings offered a walk-through of a giant human rectum. I passed on that one.
I had some interesting discussions with the good people manning the various booths. I reported my recent bout of pertussis (whooping cough) to the staff at the public health booth. Thank you to all those parents who withheld immunizations for their children for allowing this once suppressed disease to become epidemic again. Fortunately I survived, but not everyone will. I also tried to do some undercover work at the KentuckyOne Health booth by asking the most senior-looking person if they were ever going to merge with University Hospital. After an awkward short pause, the answer I got was that a non-disclosure agreement prohibited any discussion. Seems to me that was all the answer I needed!
Of course the employee may have just been playing games with me: indeed, the merger wannabees have been playing games with the public of Louisville for a few years now. We have been given to believe that some kind of status report if not the final outcome of the University of Louisville’s RFP for a new clinical partner would come at or before the end of September. Because the public has been deliberately left completely out of the loop for the planning of its own public university and hospital, I predict we will see a replay of the chaos that followed the stealth strategy of last winter. This will clearly be the result of stubborn leadership and bad advice. I agree that changes need to be made and I expect to see real leadership emerge from outside once again.
Peter Hasselbacher, MD
President, KHPI
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, UofL
Aug 27, 2012