University of Texas regents Thursday unanimously named Francisco Cigarroa as sole finalist for chancellor, the top job leading a system of nine universities and six medical institutions.

Amazing! The regents have selected a person in charge of a system that has been unable to get budgets for the departments at CTRC. Who knows, maybe none of the UTHSCSA departments get their budgets. I guess employees at CTRC could have asked Cigarroa at the quarterly town meetings he promised but since their haven’t been any, it’s kind of hard to do. They might ask their Chief Administrative Officer but CTRC doesn’t have one since no one is willing to take the job.

But maybe Cigarroa is just the kind of person the UT System needs right now. Try to do anything at UTHSCSA and you get the automatic answer of “no.” Don’t have to worry about spending a lot of money that way. No new projects, no new innovations, no new employees. In fact, you can actually reduce your payroll with this philosophy since anyone with any talent or initiative is going to leave. Congratulations, at least the A&M, Texas Tech, and U of H systems should still have the chance to flourish.
 

UT regents focus on 2 from S.A.

University of Texas regents have narrowed their search for a new chancellor to two San Antonio finalists — AT&T executive John Montford and Francisco Cigarroa, outgoing president of the UT Health Science Center, sources said Wednesday.

Why would Cigarroa be considered?

UT regents focus on 2 from S.A.

Under his leadership, the health science center’s budget almost doubled from $351 million in 2000 to $668 million this year. Research grew from an $84 million enterprise to $210 million.

Okay, if the only purspose of the chancellor is to raise money, maybe there’s something there. But surely he didn’t go out and raise that money all by himself? I’m pretty sure there were some researchers involved using their connections to get grants and funding.

Ahhh, but he set the atmosphere to make it all happen. Is this the same atmosphere that has generated a culture of “silo” thinking and petty turf battles at the Health Science Center? That’s going to be a great way to effectively use increasingly scarce resources.

Is it the leadership that has allowed “Fort Bratten” to flourish where police priorities when merging with a new organization are to identify speeders and replace all locks without providing keys to the necessary personnel?

Is this why Cigarroa stepped down as president? Not because the new Medical Arts and Research Center facility (the MARC) is being built based on wildly unrealistic assumptions on the number of patients that will be seen? Before the regents make their decision, they should really get someone to look at the projections for the MARC’s operations.

And then just wait until it opens. The powers that be at the UTHSCSA proved that they have no clue how to run a clinical enterprise in their continuing mishandling of the “merger” of CTRC. The silo mentality hasn’t yet been able to comprehend that patients are involved in research projects as well as the clinical side–the two sides are not separate entities. This is reflected in all the administrative procedures that are designed to deal with department research rather than real clinical practices.

This is the person that allowed the excuse, “sorry, that’s UT System policy” when procedures were questioned rather than admit that it was UTHSCSA policy and therefore they could do something about it if they wanted to. I do believe this falls under the atmosphere created or tolerated (does it really matter which?) by Cigarroa.

I don’t have a clue about the other candidate, John Montford. But I do know that who ever the new chancellor is will have to work hard to increase cooperation between the various elements of the UT System to maximize available resources and Cigarroa hasn’t demonstrated that ability.

Francisco Cigarroa, University of Texas Chancellor, UT Health Science Center San Antonio, UTHSCSA

Really. Apparently a patient was receiving an infusion which can take a while. He probably had a bag hanging from a pole on wheels so that he can still move around. He decides to go outside and smoke a cigarette. The rules say you can’t smoke on the premises so he heads for the sidewalk on the street. But before he gets there, he is accosted by a UTHSC-SA police officer who informs him that if he leaves the premises, he will be considered to be stealing the equipment he’s attached to and promises to arrest him if he does.

Needless to say, the paying patient is now seeking treatment elsewhere. Please spare me any explanations of this being one officer who is being dealt with appropriately. You could see this coming from a mile away. I’m sorry, when the rest of the campus freely refers to the police department as “Fort Bratten,” you have a problem.

As I understand it, the police department introduced themselves to CTRC by announcing that they would be enforcing parking regulations since they have been in the parking garage and found that drivers were going faster than 5 mph. Let’s assume that there even was a “speeding” problem in the parking lots–was this the most effective way to start their relationship with CTRC? Couldn’t they have done something like sending emails or fliers introducing the people at CTRC to UTHSC-SA regulations and then crack down if problems continued? Not if your organization is Fort Bratten.

Fort Bratten reflects a cultural problem at UTHSC-SA. The police department obviously has established an adversarial relationship with the rest of the organization. By allowing the relationship to be adversarial, the organization itself, UTHSC-SA, proves that it has serious issues in carrying out it’s mission for patient care. And this organization is supposed to improve CTRC’s patient services?

I can’t either. Why is it so hard? Because for whatever reason UTHSCSA decided to re-open the loading dock would have had to been unanticipated as part of the normal, expected planning process. And claiming it was unanticipated because no one bother to plan in the first place just doesn’t cut it.

Do you think that anyone from UTHSCSA might step forward and say something to the effect that, “you know, we probably didn’t handle this in the best way possible and we would like to sit down with people from CTRC to try to avoid more problems in the future?” But that would mean admitting that they made mistakes. Instead, it’s so much easier to just announce that the loading dock is once again open.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Of course, I still think there are some serious issues in terms of logo and branding but it’s a start.

Technorati Tags: CTRC, Cancer Therapy and Research Center, UTHSCSA, UT Health Science Center San Antonio

UT Health Science Center at San Antonio Employment

Could it be, once again, an indication that UTHSCSA made assumptions decisions without first finding out the circumstances and is only now realizing its mistakes? Will the CTRC housekeepers who had been let go have a chance at getting their old jobs back?

Technorati Tags: CTRC, UTHSCSA, Cancer Therapy and Research Center, UT Health Science San Antonio

Cancer Therapy & Research Center

And, of course, it’s absolutely necessary as part of UTHSCSA policy, right? I’m sure they consider it a critical component in bringing CTRC “back to solvency” so I thought I would visit the UTHSCSA web page to better gage the effort.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Looks like my choices are: students, patients, research, or philanthropy. I’ll go with “Patients” since that’s what I would be and that’s what CTRC needs to stay in business.

Patient Care – The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Patient Care

Hmmmm, brings me to a page listing the Dental Faculty Practice and UT Medicine–what happen to consumer health? Never mind. I’m pretty sure CTRC wouldn’t be under dental so I’ll go with UT Medicine.

UT Medicine | San Antonio

Trusted by patients. Respected by peers.

Okay, nice graphics but doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence since the most recent news is from 2006. I try the Physician Locator, it’s still under construction. How about “Our services?” No cancer or oncology listing. Oh wait, there’s medical oncology and radiation oncology. But they don’t lead to anywhere. So just how well is the UT Medical practice doing anyway?

Okay, let’s go back to the beginning and try again. I’ll go with “Research” this time. Maybe a bit more promising, I see “Institutes and Centers” in the menu bar. CTRC isn’t a specific choice so I’ll go with “all.”

UTHSCSA – Institutes & Centers

UTHSCSA Specialized Institutes & Centers

What a list! Just an FYI, there’s something called “web usability” and this list isn’t. Anyway, no CTRC. Maybe it’s under “San Antonio Cancer Institute?” Finally! Except, it doesn’t say a thing about what I should do if I’m a patient. And this is supposed to help CTRC how?

So out of curiosity, I check out some of the other centers. The Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies. Hey, wait a minute. They don’t have the UTHSCSA logo dominating their name or even on the page. What about the others? Center for Biomedical Neuroscience–no logo. Center for Violence Prevention–no logo. Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute–no logo. South Texas Women’s Health Center–no logo. Uh, does anyone else see a pattern here? Can we say $3 billion in cancer research bonds and UTHSCSA wants to make it’s in charge?

Message to UT System Board of Regents: you might want to check up on the management and priorities of the administration at UTHSCSA. They’re more worried about getting their logo up than in getting paying patients into treatment. If CTRC “starts” losing money in the next year or so, it will be the fault of UTHSCSA, not a hopelessly flawed CTRC.

H. Scott Caven, Jr.

James R. Huffines

Robert B. Rowling

John W. Barnhill, Jr.

James D. Dannenbaum

Robert A. Estrada

Paul Foster

Printice L. Gary

Colleen McHugh

Randal Matthew Camarillo

Technorati Tags: CTRC, UTHSCSA, Logo, University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, University of Texas System Board of Regents, Scott Caven, James Huffines, Robert Rowling, John Barnhill, James Dannenbaum, Robert Estrada, Paul Foster, Printice Gary, Colleen McHugh, Randal Camarillo

While it’s annoying to hear that you have to change because that’s the way UTHSCSA “has always done it,” it’s disturbing when the answer is simply “our policy doesn’t allow that” without any indication that it might be necessary to see if a change in policy is necessary. You know, when you take over an organization that is providing different services than you, it is a distinct possibility that you might need to change some things in order to deliver those new services effectively, or maybe even at all.

Take for example, “we don’t allow departments to buy food” policy. Maybe that policy was designed by UTHSCSA to cut down on employees drinking too much coffee and running out of paper in favor of hot chocolate. But what if the food isn’t being bought for the employees at CTRC? What if the food is being bought for patients who are often required to be fasting at the time they start receiving chemo and then are given snacks to make it through the next eight hours? Or maybe because vomiting on an empty stomach is not the medically recommended option?

Nope. UTHSCSA policy is clear, no purchasing of food. Maybe the department can get it listed as medical supplies. Or maybe they can do like UTHSCSA’s grand rounds and get the drug reps to bring in the food. But wait, I thought it was against UTHSCSA policy to allow drug reps in the building much less to bring food? You mean, there might be some cases where there are exceptions to the policies?

Well, at least with UTHSCSA dominating the new UTHSCSA/CTRC logo, patients can blame UTHSCSA instead of CTRC. And who knows, if enough patients decide to go somewhere else to get their chemo where they don’t have to pack their own snacks, maybe the UTHSCSA policy won’t be an issue anymore.

To give you an idea of the range and depth of the incompetency in dealing with the merger, I’ll use an analogy. Pretend that UTHSCSA is a cab company and CTRC is a city bus company. The cab company decides to buy the bus company but without knowing the following information:

(I’m just guessing as far as cab and bus company concerns so don’t base your knowledge of cab or bus operations on this analogy.)

The cab company doesn’t know the financial situation of the bus company. The cab executives working with the merger don’t really know if it’s operating at a profit or loss.

The cab company doesn’t know that bus passengers pay before they get on the bus. They simply assume that the passengers pay after they reach their destination as in cabs.

The cab company doesn’t know that bus drivers have a different licensing process and that it can’t switch cab drivers for bus drivers.

The cab company doesn’t know that legally bus drivers aren’t allowed to leave the bus to help passengers on the bus with their items.

The cab company assumes that it can simply change bus stops without realizing that the process must be approved by the city first.

The cab company doesn’t realize that the buses run on diesel or how much diesel costs.

The cab company doesn’t realize that the buses must meet certain federal regulations to continue to receive federal grants.

The cab company fires all of the bus company’s pr people thinking that they could just use the cab company’s instead. Then they find out that the bus company pr people market to a different audience and were good at getting other agencies to pay for the marketing.

The cab company thinks that bus fares are too low but doesn’t realize that they are subsidized by federal programs with accompanying federal requirements.

The cab company fires all of the bus company’s route schedulers before they realize they don’t have anyone able to plan bus routes.

The cab company doesn’t plan on providing additional training programs to bus drivers since they don’t do it for cab drivers even though bus drivers are required to have additional training to maintain their licenses while cab drivers are not.

The cab company shuts down the bus company maintenance and repair shop assuming that they can just use the cab company one. But the buses don’t fit into the repair bays and the cab mechanics don’t have the right equipment.

Get the picture? I wish I could say that I’m exaggerating but I’m not. Unfortunately, the process hasn’t been helped since many UTHSCSA employees think that they are bailing out CTRC and are doing them a favor. And the over-use and misuse of “that’s the way the state or the UT system requires it” statement is pathetic.

• All contracts are canceled since they must now be with UTHSCSA to be considered legal. Except under certain circumstances that indicate all too well that not “all” contracts had to be canceled immediately.

• The UT system doesn’t provide continuing education benefits. Actually, other UT institutions do, it’s UTHSCSA that has decided not to provide such benefits.

• We don’t have overtime. Except, of course, they do for non-exempt employees as stated on their website.

And of course, there are many more examples. Too often, UTHSCSA has presented directives or policies as set in stone even though there may be discretion allowed in the process which is really bad when anyone can find out the information on the web. Why? I guess it’s just easier to steamroll the process rather than take the time to workout what would be best for all involved.

Why haven’t the leaders of CTRC stepped in to negotiate some of these concerns especially if it was a “merger” rather than a “bailout?” Could it be that the remaining leaders already have their positions set at UTHSCSA and therefore weren’t aware or don’t care that most of the other employees are losing significant benefits? All CTRC employees have lost their seniority–for some that’s ten years down the drain. “That’s state policy” may be true, but at this point why should the employees believe them?

Ultimately, I think most CTRC employees believe that the “merger” will work out for the best in the long run. But UTHSCSA has essentially dug itself a hole in terms of employee relations. Whatever the employee culture was before CTRC employees were added can’t have improved by alienating what is now ten percent of UTHSCSA’s employees.

Technorati Tags: CTRC, UTHSCSA, Cancer Therapy and Research Center, UT Health Science Center San Antonio