Toledo: The Impending Fall Of IA

Spartandoc, the head of CRC as noted in the Toledo post just below, has met with the Medical Executive Committee of St. Charles, one of the Mercy Hospitals in Toledo. His recollections are posted on AuntMinnie (click HERE for the full entry.)

Pertinent excerpts:

All were outraged that MHP did this to us, and they were outraged with the way it was done. They all realize that they may be next, and that it is all about control. They asked several times if we would be willing to go back to MHP. This is a topic CRC talked about last night at our group meeting. The general consensus is, we would be happy to go back into mercy hospitals, but not if IA is there, and not if certain elements of the administration are still there. I stressed the fact that they should not feel that there is no other choice but to live with the poor quality of IA; if IA is out, we would be happy to go back in. At least this gave them some options. . .

In short, the medical staff is outraged at the administration, they are disgusted with the poor quality they are getting from the IA radiologists, and they are afraid that they may be next. I'm not sure what they are going to do about it, but, according to the medical executive committee, this is an absolute disaster. Later, I found out that the much ballyhooed 3D imaging from MGH is not even operational yet, despite the fact that MGH had one of their PhD's there yesterday giving a lecture about how wonderful it is. And as far as the claims of improved turn around time, Nighthawk called yesterday about an MRI, saying all of the images weren't sent. The thing is, the study was done last Thursday! More reports of 4 hour fistulagrams, 1-2 hour PICC's, unsuccessful arthrograms, disaster myelograms. It's a catastrophe on all accounts.

The handwriting is on the wall, and pretty much everywhere else in Toledo. The IA scam, experiment, whatever, has failed miserably. IA is going down, and I suspect the administrators who bought into this farce will be out on the street as well.

Let's hope we have all learned our lessons here. Perhaps the most important of all is to do the best possible job we can do. We mustn't give anyone any ammunition to pull an "IA" on us. Secondly, keep in mind that IA and the other predatory, Enron-esque entities like it would not exist if radiologists would refrain from working for them. As usual, Pogo was right on: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Greed and arrogance drive these operations. Let's be generous and humble, and kick their backsides right out of Mercy, and every other place they disgrace with their presence.