Jackson Jambalaya

Rats jumping ship?

Bye Felicia!
And good riddance.
What an idiot (and disaster) he was for UMMC.

The idiot is louann. Never has UMCs position been so weak. She’s not very bright and in way over her head. UMC just gets pushed around now by the IHL, legislature, other hospitals, Blue Cross, etc etc etc. time to move on to someone who has some stroke in the state.

He was a huge factor in UMMC’s financial disaster. Now the hospital has an extra $800,000 to put towards their debt. Good luck Lady of The Lake.

What is funny is that people are jumping ship at St. D (the new OLOL) and joining UMMC or Baptist.

They've had more than a few blind captains in the wheelhouse of this ship. Jones comes to mind. BTW, is HE still on the payroll?

What is OLOL ?

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge...and it's not just UMC...and PERS? bet he cashed out

This is what is known as upwad failure and is common in bureaucracy. You lead your organization down a rat hole,,, the go to a bigger better job

Our Lady of the Lake. Large community hospital.

UMMC has been drifting since Wally took sick. Jones is still there, as arrogant as he is incompetent (the fake religious hokum doesn't fool anyone sophisticated, but it sure works with the locals).

Our Lady of the Lake is uniquely capable of caring for a full range of illness or injury, including those that are extremely complex, for both pediatric and adult patients. Our family of services includes:

An 800-bed hospital and the area’s only Level II Trauma Center
A freestanding Children's Hospital
A 450-provider care network covering more than 40 specialties
Two free-standing emergency rooms—Our Lady of the Lake Livingston and Our Lady of the Lake North
A network of nearly 15 urgent care clinics
Outpatient imaging and surgery centers
Assumption Community Hospital
Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University
Our Lady of the Lake Ascension, a 78-bed, community hospital providing emergency, inpatient, outpatient, and surgical services to Ascension Parish and surrounding areas

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center

https://ololrmc.com/

Bbtd is nickname

@11:06 PM - That doesn't surprise me. St. D's has a 1* rating on Medicare's web site, out of 4* possible.

@6:35 AM - Google is your friend. Our Lady of the Lake.

"This is what is known as upward failure and is common in bureaucracy. You lead your organization down a rat hole,,, the go to a bigger better job "

According to the article he is going from CEO to COO, so he is h=going down a step, not upward. On the other hand, you have to consider the reputation of each institution, so this may be overall an upward move.

When my kid was applying to medical school two or three years ago, UMMC was ranked dead last in the country (out of about 163 schools). Once upon a time they did perform the world's first heart transplant and the world's first lung transplant, but under Dr. Woodward's leadership they have apparently focused on other priorities.

Thanks for all the replies clarifying 'OLOL'.

Soooooo folks use acronyms now its hard to know what they are.

I googled it before I asked and didnt see anything related to hospital management.

Thanks again.

Try 1.2 million thats his Salary

The food and football is second to none in LA., that's why he's leaving.

Kevin,
Make sure you work your last day if not you will get put on the restricted list.

The poster said 'upwad', not 'upward'. There's a difference. Upwad is when you fan the coals of failure to the point of indifference yet you find a parachute and catch the elevator to the top floor and whistle as you walk down the hall to the fire escape window.

Jones is also an 'upwad failure'. Why the hell is he allowed to hang around? Must be a bullet-proof contract. He defecated all over the UM campus and has laid his dump-cable all over the halls at UMMC.

Wonder if security escorted him out and searched his car?

More suits need to leave or get canned, way to many of them walking around drinking coffee. All they do is have meetings about how to take money out of the healthcare departments. There are providers there who have not even had a cost of living increase in over a decade. The suits will make you replace perfectly good equipment because it is budgeted and in the same breath tell you there is now no money for your continuing education WHICH IS HOW YOU KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST TECHNIQUES TO PROVIDE BETTER CARE. These types of things are also huge moral killers which is why the turnover is so high. Invest in your providers UMMC and your patient outcomes will be better

Why would you lay off surgeons and nurses that have YEARS of experience? Poorly run. I won’t use that hospital again. Government bureaucracy sucks.

@9:11 @10:08 - sounds like we all need grab a drink together and compare notes lol

An asshole from the start. Louann is a puppet and an idiot. Dan Jones and his cronies run this this fake institution. They are last in every metric for medical schools in the nation. 163 of 163. Including morality. This is the mob running our tax payer funded institution. Disgusting.

I visited there before the lockdown. I asked a guard in the IC Unit how many employees the place has. He said just over TEN THOUSAND. It's a city within a city. Not sure if it's Gomorrah or Canton, but, no matter, since the management team is the same.

You people bashing umc should really do some introspection. As all large facilities do, it has its inefficiencies. But UMC provides absolutely outstanding care with fluctuating resources in the poorest, sickest, most medically underserved state in the nation. The tax dollars people y’all about generally go to operate the schools, critical to the future of medical care in the state, and the clinical care is funded by whatever UMC generates—and UMC provides care to people that other hospitals and medical practices will not. Be appreciative and not bitter.

A tax funded facility yet they charge over 2000 percent of Medicare WHILE continually having failing grades....no wonder money leaves Mississippi in search for better care/pricing

"A tax funded facility yet they charge over 2000 percent of Medicare WHILE continually having failing grades...."

You say that like it's a bad thing, Cletus.... ;-)

Wow...some things never change. I am surprised that I'm not the only one who feels Dan Jones and the others are still behind the scenes and a major part of the problem. We called it "incest" and they did a national search after Wally left...I remember interviewing there and it impressed me that Wally brought me into his office which was not at all the way others did it. He did seem to care about faculty but could be tough. Jones was an empty suit. But the HR Department and Molly Hatchett attitude surprised me when I had to deal with them. It's been horribly run and as someone said the rankings are among the worst Medical School in the nation. Good people there, for sure, just poor leadership due to the "incest" There is a reason they hire all the leadership from within. No other major University would EVER have that many "good ole boys."

There is now a private medical school for Osteopathic Medicine in Hattiesburg at William Carey University. When these students finish medical school most of them go through a residency and many of them do their residencies at UMMC to earn a specialty designation. It is good that there is now a second medical school in the state, because over 25% of Mississippi physicians are within 5 years of normal retirement age. Mississippi is medically under-served in most of its counties, so it is important to train and develop new physicians and mid-level providers.

The UMMC state appropriations go toward medical, nursing and allied health education. The health care delivery services get almost zero appropriations, and must make their budget through service revenues. There is a mandate in state law that says that UMMC must provide 50% of its beds for uninsured and Medicaid patients. No other organization, especially the for-profit and out-of-state owned non-profits, has this burden.

Government ownership does promote inefficiencies, including various mandates for personnel policies, purchasing practices, and other such regulations intended to protect taxpayers. At the same time, UMMC is called upon to be the only Level 1 Trauma Center, while other Jackson area hospitals elect to pay a fee not to participate in the trauma program at all.

UMMC is now the only Mississippi-owned medical facility in the Jackson metro. All others are owned by out-of-state organizations who are taking all profits, if any, out of state.

Just a little perspective.

The poster just above said it even better than I did a few paragraphs above that. To respond to the person talking about failing grades… Again, do some introspection and some research before you spout off. Do you have any idea how the grades are calculated? Did you know that being the medical center that takes care of some very underprivileged patients with neglected disease, poor ability to participate in ongoing follow up, and poor social support contributes to less than ideal outcomes? UMC is an incredible place with a very important mission, one that I am blessed to be able to participate in (despite the opportunity to make more money elsewhere). Many practices IN JACKSON now turn away Medicaid and self-pay patients. And as for “big name hospitals in other states”, if your patient base consists mostly of wealthy, well insured people with the ability to fly all over the country you should certainly have better “grades” just due to the better outcomes likely for those people. There is nothing wrong with those facilities, but UMC is doing something special for a needy community. So check your privilege and educate yourself. (Oh, and I am a white conservative, btw).

This man, Kevin Cook, and his wife Shana, are the most giving humble people I’ve ever met. He has worked so hard for UMMC. He is no rat I assure you. He is not jumping because of a sinking ship. His hands are tied by the vice chancellor. It was his job to bring in money and revenue, but when you have the vice chancellor assembling her hand picked team and knocking you out of meetings and doing back room deals to keep 200 beds empty for a spike that will never be seen in Mississippi, you lose money. This is not New York, as badly as the vice chancellor and Dobbs want to think it is. I personally know this man. He went above and beyond for my family at this hospital and helped us in ways I will never be able to repay nor will I forget. His wife is more generous than any single person I’ve ever met. I hope they are both valued and treated with the respect they deserve on their next journey.

It’s very unfair to bash Woodward and Jones without throwing Brian Rutledge in there.

Re: post June 5, 2020 at 7:23 AM.

Mississippi's Governor ordered elective procedures cancelled and all Mississippi hospitals complied. So the reduction in volume was clearly no "back room deal" within UMMC as stated by the poster at 7:23 AM.

In retrospect, was the order to shut down elective services in all hospitals necessary? It is hard to tell, and we may never know. But apparently our federal government thought elective case shutdowns necessary and the government (I mean we taxpayers) paid hospitals some significant but also inadequate monies to help out. Hospitals across the U.S. are laying off and furloughing staff due to these governmental orders which resulted in significant revenue loss.

Hospitals know how to handle infectious patients, so was the shutdown of elective cases really necessary from a technical perspective? The main reason apparently was to conserve ICU beds for the COVID patients. But what about outpatient procedures? What about urgent but not emergent cases?

There used to be a tuberculosis hospital in Simpson County operated by the State, until antibiotics reduced tuberculosis as a threat. Should there be a specialty infectious disease facility to avoid shutting down all hospital elective cases in the future?

Instead of pointing fingers, let's have some real strategic thinking.

It’s easy to insult people and institutions behind the current of anonymous internet post. I’ve read post after post after post on this thread and approximately 90% of those were filled with negativity and zero proposed solutions. Rather than post negative comments and beat down UMMC, why don’t you help us by providing solutions? Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If a negative rant makes you sleep better, then rant on. Otherwise, why not propose a solution to the problem? If you can’t bring a solution to the table, then maybe you should just be quiet.

You want solutions? Here is one: It’s time for a new EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM starting with firing Louann Woodward. MOLLY WITCHFIELD should be right beside her. Then all the good ole boys... GIVE Cook a bonus to talk! 😉

I worked in this organization within administration and I have to tell you the inbreeding and good ole boys mentality is so extreme I can’t even describe it. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. And Kevin Cook!!!!!!! What an ass; His is only interested in himself and his ability to be fully in charge with a continued upward responsibility and associated salary. There’s nothing more to him. That is his sole interest. If this departure came from a falling out it would have been because he just doesn’t have enough control to suit him. UMMC should count themselves lucky and I’m so sorry for your acquisition OLOL. But you will figure that out soon enough as character matters and he will demonstrate who he truly is soon enough.