Dr. Kearney Case Update #16

5/21/2016

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 15 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Finally, to understand the development of the blog it is best to read it from the bottom post (Dr. Paul Kearney Case) up. One point of note here, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available.

* Note: To see PDF Documents cited in this post simply click on the underlined segment

Some interesting comments on the previous post (might be worth the short investment of time to read) as well as some new information, appear to merit a new post.

One of the more interesting comments in the previous post is this one made by “The Mole”.

“Apparently UKHealthcare physicians participated in a Press-Ganey Physician/faculty engagement survey. The results are in and UK/UkHealthcare scored in the lowest percentile group of this survey in the entire country. My sources tell me that the administration (Karpf) are thinking about what to do with this information and how to avoid releasing it. Maybe a good start would be to take the survey seriously and think about why faculty are so disengaged.

And, of all of the units at UK that participated the absolute worst was surgery and I'm sure this has something to do with the awful leadership and the Kearney stuff that’s being discussed here.”

Unless you do not work in UK hospital or UK College of Medicine, these findings are probably of no big surprise. The real disappointment is the lengths to which the administrations (College, hospital and University) have been willing to go to make this happen. As has been stated multiple times on the blog, these administrations view the buildings as much more important than the people occupying them. The question is, when will they learn that true respect is earned in academic institutions and not bought or coerced.

The new information consists of last Thursday’s decision handed down by the Attorney General’s office with respect to Dr. Hatemi’s open records request for University of Kentucky Healthcare Compensation Planning Committee meeting minutes. Bill Swinford, the University of Kentucky’s Official Records Custodian and President Capilouto’s Chief of Staff, basically denied Dr. Hatemi's request informing him that "the Office of the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs has advised that there are no documents responsive to the request." Upon receipt of the committee and Mr. Swinford’s denial of the request, Dr. Hatemi initiated an appeal to the Attorney General’s office.

You can access that 8-page decision here (Document 1B) but the summary states:

“Summary: The Attorney General has the authority to request additional documents in deciding Open Records or Open Meetings appeals. The record before the Attorney General shows that the University of Kentucky Healthcare Compensation Planning
Committee is a public agency and failed to meet its statutorily assigned burden of proving that it conducted an adequate search for requested meeting minutes.”

As you might garner from the wording of this summary, one approach used by Mr. Swinford in his response to the appeal was to simply declare that the Attorney General does not have the authority to request these documents. To which the Attorney General’s office proceeded to provide precedents for its authority.

Along these same lines, Mr. Swinford then tried to declare that although membership consists of the eighteen clinical department chairs as well as a small number of other members selected by KMSF, this committee was not part of the university (keeping in mind that KMSF was previously declared by this office to be part of the University). The Attorney General’s Office once again wasn’t buying this excuse.

Finally, Mr. Swinford suggested that no meeting minutes existed. But considering things like salary compensation, bonuses and other decision-making agendas were part of these meetings; the Attorney General’s office wasn’t buying this either. If you read the document you can almost feel the frustration the Attorney General’s Office was experiencing trying to pry information out of these guys.

The most logical interpretation for the above unwillingness of the administration to provide these documents is simply that they want to keep the information from these meetings “secret”. Something is rotten in Denmark, or Lexington for that matter, when the administration at a public institution feels it needs to hide from the public its financial data and financial management practices.

48 Comments

Lester Corncrake

5/22/2016 05:18:14 am

So what happens now. The Attorney Genera's response indicates that they believe the requested records exist but also implies that they don't have any power to subpoena them. It does say (footnote 14) that they expect these records to be kept and made available to the public from now on. Is that it?

Dan Noonan

5/22/2016 11:18:55 am

Thanks for the comment Lester. I have no idea where they go from here. Considering that these meetings discuss financial matters with respect to faculty salary and bonuses, it is absurd to believe there is no documentation kept with respect to discussions and decisions made. Even if it is nothing more than tape recordings later transcribed, you know that they exist somewhere. What is clear is that they do not want this information made public and the important question is why? Is there something illegal that they are doing that they need to hide? Are the bonuses so obtuse that they fear the backlash when the public hears what they are doing with their money? Are they using the money they are receiving in an improper manner? I harken back to the hospital/College budget meeting I attended wherein Dr. Karpf, with fingers intertwined over his head, declared that 'we have to think of these pots of money as all one big pot'. The pots he was referring to were the income from grants, the income from state funds, the income from teaching and the hospital income. With this attitude it is hard not to envision a potential misuse of funds. Their resistance to a ten year public audit of their finances further supports this possibility.

Spider Dijon

5/22/2016 02:33:45 pm

Is there any possibility that they are just not coughing up the records because they don't like being bullied by Kearney and Hatemi? I'm getting tired of this broken record "must be hiding something" theory. Its time to put up or shut up.

5/22/2016 03:44:11 pm

Thanks for the comment Spider. I guess my question is simple, Put up or shut up what? I believe they as employees of this public university are the ones that need to put up. Once they put up (provide the public documents and public audit requested) we will then put up or shut up depending on the documents provided. If the documents (which the Attorney General declared are open records) prove to be of no consequence, then we will move on.

Beyond that, you have me in tears for the poor bullied, suffering and abused administrators and lawyers of the University. I mean they have bent over backwards to be kind and generous to Dr. Kearney, and have done everything in there power to assist the State's Attorney General's office in their quest for these documents. NOT!

It is simple, they can very easily prove these "Theories" incorrect. The ball is in their court, not ours. Furthermore, it would be of great advantage to do so because it might help to move our hospital and College out of the worst of the worst category with respect to the faculty engagement and satisfaction survey mentioned above.

Rudi van Disarzio

5/22/2016 05:00:44 pm

I think what my fellow bongo brother Spider is asking is might there be some other way to expose these wrong doings other than through this interminable open records request process?

And, lets say they decide to provide access to all of the accounting records for the COM. UK Healthcare and KMSF. For 10 years? Can you imagine how much data that would be. Who would actually do the audit (or pay for a reputable accounting firm to do the audit)?

I just don't think you lot have thought this through properly.

5/22/2016 05:51:05 pm

Thanks for the comment Spider….I mean Rudi. To begin with, we are all ears. If you have alternative ideas for approaching this, feel free to post them. It is easy to critique but we would much rather hear constructive solutions rather than administrative cries of, "see the nail holes in my hands and the sword in my side".

Furthermore, unfortunately your suggestion that the requests made are too burdensome is sounding way too much like the UK lawyers lament to the Attorney General's office that was decisively shut down. Where did you say you worked?

Dennis

5/23/2016 06:16:09 am

I think the best way forwards would be to make a specific allegation of wrongdoing with overwhelming evidence to support it. Without that all of this just looks like fishing. How many people would have to be in on what you all seem to think is a massive criminal conspiracy at UK Healthcare? Is it really likely that this could really happen without anyone blowing the whistle (aside from St. Kearney who obviously doesn't actually have any credible evidence).

5/23/2016 03:37:08 am

Personally I think if we are going to pay all of these consultants to help us build our future hospital and college it might be wise to spend a little money on public auditors to make sure we are building that future on a reliable foundation. Everything I have seen and heard in the recent past here at the hospital and discussed on this blog suggests this might be a worthwhile investment.

Tony Reason

5/23/2016 07:25:58 am

I think if someone could convince the president and BOT that something really bad was going on at UKHealthcare they would consider an audit. So the ball is in your court as they say to come up with some convincing evidence to get the ball rolling...Have at it!

5/23/2016 11:18:32 am

Thanks once again Dennis and Tony for your comments. Unfortunately, I would totally disagree with you on this belief that the ball is in our court (not surprising). The major problem I see with your administrative position in this matter is that as a taxpayer of this state and former UK College of Medicine faculty member, I find there to be a pile of convincing evidence that something is amiss in the financial practices that have been employed by university, hospital and College administrations.

To begin with there is the tremendous amount of money and time being invested in the administration’s (University, hospital and College) attempts to deny open records requests on matters that might reveal mismanagement of funds. The question is why? Every other meeting minutes request made is generally provided without an argument.

Then there is the extreme measures (including threats and banishment from the University) the University, hospital and College administrations have employed in an attempt to silence Dr. Kearney following his challenging of these issues in a Faculty Council meeting.

Finally, there is the Dan Ross case discussed earlier (need to go back to the very first blog post). Dan Ross was a university auditor who attempted to point out financial mismanagement by KMSF to both his bosses and the University administration. Shortly after this he was fired for insubordination. He subsequently filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against the University of Kentucky, which to the chagrin of the University lawyers was upheld by an Appellate Court decision (01/13/14). Because this case simply disappeared, the most probable assumption is that Mr. Ross was handsomely paid off by the University. Unfortunately that did not really clear KMSF with regards to their financial mismanagement. In fact, recent Attorney General decisions firmly placing KMSF as part of the university fully supports Mr. Ross’ claims that the university illegally used KMSF to siphon matching state funds from the RCTF program. Thus here we have not only a precedent for asking for an audit, but also both a precedent for asking for a public auditor and a starting point should a public auditor wish to focus.

With regards to convincing the University President that this evidence merits an audit ….. common now, you notice when I mention the administrations in the above paragraphs I included the “university administration”. President Capilouto doesn’t run this university, the lawyers do. If you write the President (and trust me on this, I have many times), especially with a concern, his chief of staff or General Council responds. In the past when I was on the University Senate, in spite of the fact that he is the designated head of that Senate, President Capilouto rarely attended Senate meetings. He always sent, you guessed it, his Chief of Staff (lawyer Bill Swinford) in his place. One realistic possibility is the BoT, that is if our faculty representative is willing to swim in the deep end of the pool.

So in summary, there is plenty of evidence to merit a public audit, and in my opinion the Dan Ross case is a smoking gun.

Fantasy Man

5/23/2016 12:13:25 pm

So someone needs to track down this Dan Ross and compel him to spill the beans. Also wouldn't details of an agreement between UK or UKHealthcare or KMSF and Mr Ross to settle the whistleblower case be something that it would be more productive to go after through an open records request than these meeting minutes?

Everything else you list is just hearsay and speculation with a healthy dose of paranoia thrown in for good measure.

The truth is out there!

5/23/2016 12:54:44 pm

I personally do not see anything paranoiac in what happened to Paul Kearney nor the open records requests for which the the university has spent and continues to spend many thousands of dollars in outside lawyers to make happen. These clearly appear to be either acts of fear or paranoia on the part of the administration. I'm not buying this lame idea that they are doing it because they don't like being "bullied" by these people. I do like your idea for an open records request centering on the Dan Ross case.

Bob Fossil

5/23/2016 02:34:09 pm

The paranoia would be the frequent claims that the blog is being watched/monitored, that people have been "warned" about reading/posting here and that Kearney was sacked because he was about to expose "the truth" about UKHealthcare/KMSF (whatever that is....)
Also, in the scale of money being wasted on the multiple >$500K/year salaries of the high level KMSF/UKHealthcare operatives the money spent on lawyers to string along Kearney/Hatemi is peanuts.

5/23/2016 01:18:32 pm

I looked at the Ross case again. His "whistleblowing" was about use of KMSF funds for RCTF resulting in provision of matching funds by the state, something that might be technically impermissible if KMSF is a state entity. Obviously nobody thought this was sufficiently egregious that it merited prosecution of anyone at the time (almost 10 years ago). And given the pathetic level of support of the University by the State how is getting a bit more money for professorships a bad thing?

Presumably you all will chime in that this must be evidence of additional wrongdoings yet to be discovered...

5/23/2016 02:52:57 pm

Thanks for the comments Fantasy, PT and Dennis. I tend to agree with PT (as might be expected) that the administrations are expressing much more paranoia than anyone else in these matters.

So now let's look at what might be wrong with a bit more money for professorships at the University of Kentucky. I am all for that, and I was all for the RCTF program. I thought it was a great idea and the department I was in benefited from it. My problem has nothing to do with the program itself, but our administrators manipulation of it. The program consisted of a limited pot of state tax dollars that were targeted to research efforts in the universities and colleges throughout the state. It was very simple, the state would use this pot of money to match contributions from non-affiliated sources. The senior administrators in the UK hospital and College of Medicine decided that they could scam the system by having their financial arm KMSF contribute money and get the state to match that money. I suspect they got some of this money back through indirect costs and with the EVPHA's perspective of "think of this as all one big pot of money", who really knows where these monies came from. I can see that Dennis has no problem with this, because it was a long time ago and it advanced our College's research effort. My problem is that it did all of this at the expense of the other universities and colleges in this state. The pot of money for the program was limited and vied for by not just the University of Kentucky. If you have to cheat to win then it is no win at all and reflects badly on both the integrity of the University and the administration that made it happen. Furthermore, as Dennis suggested, although this is old news, to me it is definitely a smoking gun that points to a propensity to bend the rules when it comes to management of finances. Therefore yes, this along with the other red flags cited above all strongly suggest additional wrongdoings have occurred. Exposing these may not be important to some, but it is to many of us whose hard earned tax dollars went into these lies and deceptions.

5/23/2016 05:33:23 pm

Just out of curiosity, how do you know that the allegations in the Ross whistleblower case were true? The "upholding" you cite above only concerned Ross's whistlblower protections and the university's claim that his allegations were not protected. There is nothing in the published opinion about the validity of his allegations (of which the KMSF/RCTF allegations are only a minor component). Sometimes you get so carried away being outraged that you loose sight of the facts.

5/24/2016 02:26:32 am

Thanks again for the comments Dennis. It is good to have a devil’s advocate contributing to the blog. It keeps it going. Your point is a valid one, but only from the perspective that the Ross case never made it to trial. Still, some facts remain including what has happened to Dr. Kearney, what has happened in the open records requests and the simple fact that the university never argued that KMSF didn’t contribute to the RCTF program (hard to do when the records show otherwise), but rather that KMSF is not a part of the university. This of course we now know, and they surely knew at the time, was not the case. If this is not enough to bother you about the ethics of those leading the hospital and College, then I can only hope you are not one of them. Thanks again for keeping the blog alive.

5/24/2016 02:49:48 am

So why didn't the State ask for its matching funds back? And why didn't the other universities that were cheated out of their share of these funds complain? It seems to me that nobody cares as much about this as you do.

5/24/2016 03:51:52 am

Thanks again for your comment Dennis. Perhaps you are right and that Dan Ross, Paul Kearney, I and quite a few others who have emailed me are the only ones who care about this. It is clear that you do not. My preference is to believe that those that do care about this and other matters of this nature look at it from the perspective of their employment at the university. We have seen what has happened to Dan Ross and what is happening to Dr. Paul Kearney who have attempted to investigate these matters. I am sure a lot of folks like yourself, other administrators of this university and even many politicians would prefer to have this matter swepted under the carpet. I mean there are probably basketball tickets hanging in the balance. So you keep on bringing it up on the blog because as I see it, your attempts to minimize the significance of this only makes it bigger.

5/24/2016 04:01:33 am

I am just trying to help you separate the very limited facts from the rampant speculation. In the end can we all agree that there is essentially no concrete evidence for any serious wrongdoing on the part of KMSF or UKHealthcare.

5/24/2016 04:29:23 am

Thanks again for your comment Dennis. I can't speak for the rest, but I personally can't agree that there is essentially no concrete evidence for any serious wrongdoing on the part of KMSF or UKHealthcare. The evidence is there, it has been presented and it is just a matter of accepting it for what it is and not trying to bury it in rhetoric, minimize it by saying it isn't important or change it into something else. It is simple, this is a public institution so let the public see the financial records and public meeting minutes like the Attorney General stated we have a right to. Let the audit begin and prove us wrong.

5/24/2016 05:11:04 am

OK. The open records requests are for minutes of this compensation committee. So what evidence of wrongdoing do you think is going to be revealed by having access to these minutes? How would this audit work? Would you file an open records request for all of the accounts of the COM/UKHealthcare and KMSF for the past 10 years? Based on your understanding of the open records statute do you think that would be successful? Who would actually conduct the audit? Who would pay for it?

5/24/2016 11:04:31 am

Thanks again for the comments Dennis. It is a beautiful golf day and we have been rather beating the proverbial dead horse here. We are simply talking about minutes to specific meetings that are subject to open records laws, and the university lawyers have done everything they can to refuse this request. If you want to know what minutes were asked for simply talk to some of your friends there, or better yet, make your own public records request of the minutes for monthly meetings (years 2013-present) for the University of Kentucky Healthcare Compensation Planning Committee. You do not and should not have to give a reason for accessing these public records. No “evidence of wrongdoing” is required. Most other committees at this university actually put their meeting minutes online. Once you get those meeting minutes simply email them to me (dnoonan48@gmail.com) and I will gladly post them on the blog. Thank you for your efforts to the cause. Now it is time to do something much more constructive for a retired old man like myself, that being chase a little white ball around a sunny golf course.

Daddy Push

5/23/2016 02:44:03 pm

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article79252497.html

Nice to see that at least in the college of arts and sciences there isn't one bit pot of money and when funds are overspent people loose their jobs and the money has to be paid back.

It would be so much better if things worked like this in the COM/Hospital.

5/24/2016 02:39:54 am

Thanks Daddy for your comment. This is truly unfortunate, especially because it is not the $338,000/yr salaried Dean being impacted, but rather the lower income workers. I am in total agreement, when you start mixing your pots of money, especially those from sources that provided the money for a specific purpose, you are in essence misusing these funds.

5/24/2016 03:36:12 am

I think the Dean is being publicly thrown under the bus for this as part of an effort to get rid of him and this is all connected to the developing honors college fiasco. The interim dean of the honors program is/has left UK to be dean of an honors program at a significantly more highly ranked university than UK so now there is a big panic to find someone to replace her. And I'm also hearing that there may be all kinds of stipulations attached to the Lewis honors college gift that might impact on the kind of person they can hire. On top of that, all of this is in turn connected to UKs shockingly bad undergraduate retention/graduation rates and the possibility that UK will get even less state support if these don't improve. And of course enrollments have to grow to fill all of those new residence halls that were built by companies who want to start getting their money back. I'm also not sure that either Capilouto or provost Tracy know much about how to develop quality undergraduate education programs. So this is yet another developing mess...

LBJ

5/24/2016 04:00:16 pm

The truth is out there:

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article79347102.html

5/24/2016 04:14:30 pm

Thanks LBJ for the info. I saw this. Once again you have to ask WHY? Dennis believes it is because they don't want to be bullied by the big bad former med student and ostracized faculty member/trauma surgeon. What do you think?

5/24/2016 04:24:27 pm

Get real. Nobody wastes this amount of time and money on a former med student and a surgeon who they have already taken away his patient privileges, reduced his salary to a third of what he was making, blocked him from teaching and stuck him into a closet outside the hospital and college. They are hiding something and we know it.

5/25/2016 09:03:02 am

I think that all of you are angry because you have no control over anything that happens at the University and Hospital and to rub your noses in it the treatment of your friend Kearney is the last straw. So you are fighting back the only way you can by trying to insist that you have rights to see all of their records and files in the hope that you can then find something wrong and go on to cause more trouble.
You are probably right that some of these records should be available. However, records relating to faculty/physician compensation may well be protected business information. So as this process staggers forwards this will be the next card played by UK. And you know that some people get bonuses and other kinds of incentives and I expect that is also a cause of jealousy and is driving the quest to see the records.

Practicing medicine in the hospital, using hospital facilities and resources and staff (and abusing the staff) is not a right. Kearney will never be allowed back into the hospital and there is nothing you or the courts can do about that.

So suck on that.

5/25/2016 11:50:57 am

Thanks once again for your comments Dennis. From your comments, it really sounds like you are getting desperate now. Sounding clearly like one of the highly overpaid administrators attempting to once again justify their actions and fighting back the only way they can, by trying to insist we as public citizens do not have the rights to challenge the authorities in this public institution. Keep up the good work Dennis, it will be reflected in your annual bonus (that you obviously feel you merit and that the public should know nothing about). The question I guess everybody is asking; If anyone can access faculty and staff salaries at this public institution, including the Herald leader, why in the world should faculty/physician salaries and bonuses at this public university and hospital be deemed "secret"? I mean even the basketball and football coaches salaries and bonuses are public knowledge. What makes faculty/physicians so special that this information must be kept “secret”? Or, once again, what are you hiding?

There is one question that surfaced from your remarks above. Your final statement suggests that you feel the hospital administration was totally justified in the actions taken against Dr. Kearney. Is that so? Do you really feel that the punishment matched the crime? This in spite of the hundred plus letters of support that President Capilouto received from the public, the massive support Dr. Kearney has received from the students, the support Dr. Kearney has received from university faculty who elected him to the University Senate, the support Dr. Kearney has received from his physician colleagues who voted him to the University HealthCare Colleges Council and even to a certain respect from the Board of Licensure who found little cause to react to an incident for which even the offended party has withdrawn any claims. Just trying to figure out where on this Medical Staff Executive Committee you sit?

Finally, at least for me, I must add that there is no jealousy involved in any of this. I am retired and thoroughly enjoying it. Beyond that, I know of nobody in the university administration I would care to be jealous of. I enjoy living a straightforward honest existence. It is good for my golf game and it helps me sleep at night. You might think about trying it.

Hatemi's gonna hate

5/27/2016 03:46:11 am

Dennis- I don't think you appreciate the cunning strategy in play here.
Kearney has claimed that he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle about the this "compensation committee" not existing/meeting. Hatemi has deviously requested records of meetings of the committee putting UK/KMSF in a catch-22 situation where they either produce the minutes, or admit that the committee didn't meet or exist. Or I suppose they could fabricate some minutes which would be even worse. Or they could just stonewall which they are doing.
Well played sirs, well played!

5/27/2016 04:02:52 am

I stand corrected and apologize for not recognizing the brilliance of your legal strategy.

But aside from not following the letter of the KMSF regulations have any laws been broken, has anyone (aside from St. Kearney) been wronged? Even if all this is true, so what? Is there anything else anyone can offer apart from Noonan's relentless "tip of the iceberg" theories?

5/25/2016 12:04:16 pm

What am I desperate about? Kearney and co have not achieved anything other than wasting a lot of time and paper on all of their legal filings. Last time I checked he still can't practice medicine and is still in the broom closet. I don't see any of that changing any time soon, even if you get your hands on the meeting records.

This isn't really a great injustice in the scale of things. Its one blowhard (Kearney) having a pissing contest with some other blowhards (Karpf, DeBeer and their minions) and unfortunately Karpf and co control the hospital and can largely do what they like which includes not letting Kearney work there just because they can.

And as for Kearney, hopefully his reduced salary is enough to buy a few rounds of golf for the two of you! He certainly has plenty of spare time on his hands...

Hang in there.

Rosie

5/25/2016 01:38:11 pm

I see I need to check this blog more often. This is getting to be fun. Dennis, you really seem to relish in the misfortunes of others. Your animosity is giving you away. I am pretty sure we have met before. You have to be careful with that because you just never know who the blowhards might choose as their next victim. HANG in there.

5/25/2016 02:10:12 pm

There is no animosity, I'm just being realistic. You people in the Kearney Resistance Movement have promised a lot but delivered essentially nothing so far. I was just pointing that out.

Yes, I suppose I could be the next victim. Except I only pick fights that I can win and I would certainly not prod the UKHealthcare hornet's nest without a clear exit strategy because nobody, even Saint Paul Kearney is protected from the powers of the UKHealthcare mafia.

Rosie? 42-39-56?

Spin Doctor

5/25/2016 05:21:53 pm

If you can't laugh at this, what is there left to laugh at. Here is one of our better spin doctors, Bo Knows, putting the administration's spin on the recent Employee Engagement Survey where we ranked as one of the worst in the nation. Their response is seemingly, you should all be proud because 'we are improving in our ratings every year, meaning that this place must be a great place to work'.

Hopefully everyone got Bo's email, but if not I have pasted in below the text from that email. Sorry, but I could not put in the lovely graph to go along with this.

Bo's Email entitled: Overall survey score increases from last year

The overall workforce engagement score from this year’s Employee Engagement Survey increased over last year's survey from 4.05 to 4.08 (see graph below). The increase shows the commitment all team members have in making UK HealthCare a great place to work. We should all be proud of this accomplishment.

Taking the employee engagement survey is a great opportunity for us as an organization to give and receive crucial feedback to continue to move us forward.

In an earlier email, I told you the response rate of 81 percent (6,885 responses) is the best in the survey's history, which means we’ll have more information than ever to make UK HealthCare a better place to care for patients and one another.

I am sure you are excited to learn the survey results from the area where you work. Supervisors will soon receive an email from Press Ganey with login information to access individual department/unit results so they can be shared with you and your colleagues during June and July.

For the first time this year and based on your feedback, we will be hosting open sessions for any employee to attend to hear the overall engagement results. This is your opportunity to hear the overall results, ask questions and hear how the organization is excited to continue great momentum and support engagement efforts.

Open Sessions:

Thursday, May 26, 7:30 a.m., MN463
Friday, May 27, noon, MN263

Sincerely,

Bo Cofield, DrPH
VP & Chief Clinical Operations Officer

Son of The Mole

5/25/2016 05:33:29 pm

Actually this is only for the staff survey and its not too bad since the score is out of 5. The faculty engagement survey data is the one where UK scored in the lowest percentile and it is too radioactive to allow anyone to access online. Apparently whatever they are willing to share will be distributed to some of the "leaders" on Friday but in hard copy form only. Presumably it has been taking them all week to massage/manipulate the data. If I can get hold of the data I will try to share it here.

5/25/2016 05:56:25 pm

Thanks Spin Doctor and Son of Mole for the comments. I am afraid Son of Mole is correct here. This is a staff survey and not the faculty engagement survey discussed above by The Mole. What I think Dr. Cofield is actually doing here is to try and soften the blow from the inevitable release of the horrible results from the faculty engagement survey. It should be interesting to see how they try to spin the results from that survey.

The Mole

5/26/2016 12:00:28 pm

I think the fact that only a subset of the faculty engagement data are being released to a restricted group in a non electronic format on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend when people won't be around tells you everything you need to know about how damaging this information is.

5/26/2016 04:21:09 pm

Thanks The Mole for this update. Does anyone out there know if the results from these surveys are published or restrictively sent to the administrators of a university who ultimately define whether these results will be released? I suspect if we pay for the survey then the data is private, but if not and Press-Ganey publishes them or makes them available I would be willing to write them and request a copy. Their site (http://www.pressganey.com/solutions/engagement/physician) would suggest it is the former. The problem here at UK is that the administrators probably never intended to use the survey data as a means to improve conditions, but rather like the staff survey, to use these data to promote the great job they are doing and justify their bonuses. Oooops, probably just another waste of money.

5/27/2016 03:48:02 am

Why don't you try an open records request for the engagement survey results :-)

5/27/2016 06:28:52 am

Great idea Dennis, will do. Thanks for the help.

Mrs LT

5/27/2016 11:27:48 am

I'm back! Just wanted to draw your attention to the recent letter you linked to above from UK's Bill Thro to Kearney's lawyer saying that Kearney's salary was being reduced to $43,600 which is the state contribution to the anticipated annual remuneration for a full professor in the COM. How does that fit with your theory that salaries for all of the tenured faculty are fully covered by state provided faculty salary "lines"? Do you think this means that in addition to all of the other outrageous behaviors UK are also stealing Kearney's state provided salary?

Montgomery Flange

5/27/2016 02:37:06 pm

Why dont a bunch of you members of klub kearney just put him on your grants? That would establish his research efforts and presumably restore some of his salary. Job done! No need to thank me for sorting this!!

Sammy the crab

5/28/2016 04:55:19 am

That's a great idea and presumably what with Kearney,s walk on water credentials nobody could possibly complain. Certainly as a pi myself I don't think the university can tell me who I can and can't involve in and pay from my grants.

5/28/2016 10:55:25 am

Thank you Monti and Sammy for the comments. I agree, although not original (mentioned constructively in an earlier blog post) it is a very good idea. True the administration can't tell you who you can put on your grant, but I suspect there are few in the College that would risk the retaliation they might receive from the administration and university lawyers. Still, maybe there are a few well funded or more senior investigators that might wish to include some surgical expertise on their project.

5/29/2016 03:53:11 am

If everyone gets involved its hard to see how the asministration could retaliate "i am sparti-kearny-cus"! Or perhaps most of the people here dont have grants and the balls and motivation to do anything practical to fight back?

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Dr. Kearney Case Update #16

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