eHealth Ontario buddy system

[capricorn]

You know it's bad when a consultant is caught billing the taxpayer for time spent e-mailing and telephoning herself.

A freedom of information request by Conservative party researchers revealed the agency spent $5-million in untendered contracts in only four months, from its inception in late September, 2008, to January, 2009.

Those contracts reveal a tangle of relationships between many senior eHealth officials, including Ms. Kramer, board chairman Dr. Alan Hudson and their former colleagues and associates. Three contracts totalling nearly $2-million, for example, were awarded to Courtyard Group, whose founding partner, Michael Guerriere, worked closely with Hudson for years.

Mr. Guerriere's wife, Miyo Yamashita, was also the beneficiary of a four-month, $268,000 contract as managing partner of Anzen Consulting Inc.

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Conservatives released documents Thursday showing Ms. Yamashita, who as a partner at Anzen was responsible for developing a communications and media strategy, billed eight hours at $300 per hour for tasks that included sending herself e-mails and calling herself to ask followup questions.

The documents also show a senior vice-president, Donna Strating, was expensing three-dollar snacks and even cheaper soft drinks even as she earned $2,700 per day.

Another high-priced consultant, Allaudin Merali, expensed a nightly glass of wine at the Royal York hotel last November while earning a similarly stratospheric wage in addition to a daily stipend for out-of-pocket expenses.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1663805

Dalton is standing by Health Minister David Caplan.

"Some things have taken place there which we simply cannot condone," Premier Dalton McGuinty acknowledged during question period. "We're going to have to find ways to ensure that those kinds of things don't happen again."

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1663805

Lucky for Dalton and Caplan, they escape the attacks in the Legislature, which rose for a 14-week summer break today.

$647M spent in six years to put health records online and no results. There's no telling what the final tab will be.

[Smallc]

All operations should be suspended and a full investigation should be launched. Whether or not any government officials were aware of what was going on is not known, but what the CEO is doing certainly seems wrong. It's a shame since this is such a worthy project.

[capricorn]

Whether or not any government officials were aware of what was going on is not known,

Who was signing the cheques to ehealth? Follow the money.

[Smallc]

An investigation is necessary to determine if anyone else necessarily knew. Were the right safeguards in place? Was there involvement from above? These are things that have to be looked into.

[capricorn]

Were the right safeguards in place?

Probably similar flimsy safeguards that were in place when McGuinty gave a cricket club a one million dollar grant when they only asked for ten thousand. Someone added a few zeros to the cheque. Same old from Dalton "it won't happen again". BS.

[Smallc]

I doubt jumping to conclusions and automatically assuming the the Premier has to be involved will help.

[Chuck U. Farlie]

Yet another Liberal scandal, go figure.

[Topaz]

It doesn`t matter which party it is, wrong is wrong and if the Health is in the wrong then he has to go. I think its time for the NDP to make a comeback in Ontario. After Harris, will go on the in the minds of Ontarians and with what has happened in the last four years its time to rest the Libs. I wouldn`t want to be a leader of any of the parties when there`s a recession going on and whoever does get in, will have a really battle with the debt.

[Chuck U. Farlie]

It doesn`t matter which party it is, wrong is wrong and if the Health is in the wrong then he has to go. I think its time for the NDP to make a comeback in Ontario. After Harris, will go on the in the minds of Ontarians and with what has happened in the last four years its time to rest the Libs. I wouldn`t want to be a leader of any of the parties when there`s a recession going on and whoever does get in, will have a really battle with the debt.

The NDP? Are you kidding me? No thanks, I still remember the Rae years.

[Smallc]

They don't have to be like that NDP. There are other models across the country.

[ba1614]

Yet another Liberal scandal, go figure.

Hard to believe eh?

I can't imagine how anyone thinks another federal Fiberal government will be any less crooked than the last, or current provincials.

[Smallc]

Yes, I can't imagine why we'd want to return to the terrible time under the Liberals....

[myata]

Mismanagement follows money and happened, happens and will happen in public and private busness alike. The head of the department has to be given some freedom on how to spend the funds, or we won't see anything at all happen here ever, only endless discussions and meetings (a la City of Ottawa vs LRT).

I think two greatest weaknesses that need to be addressed are 1) recruiting and 2) transparency. How can we make sure that the head of agency with million spending budget does not happen to have an overspending ego, some orders of magnitude above their budget? Maybe in the recruitment phase, make emphasis on knowledge and qualifications, as opposed to starry track record?? No need to pay megabucks, these people aren't there to invent a rocket. All bonuses are tied to performance i.e. concrete delivered result. Pay increases are spaced over time ladder fashion, starting from very modest level, and again tied to concrete delivered result. If that turns off those great business stars, so be it, may be it isn't too bad, let them go and design new business models in the cutthroat volatile markets, here we only need people with basic competence who can devise a plan for a simple project and see it to completion. I mean it's not like those people were inventing a new treatment for cancer, only a big database. Every bank, company and your community library has one.

With transparency, it's even easier. All contracts above certain minimal amount are posted on the department's or organisation's Web (and minimal amount isn't millions, rather something like 2 or 5 or 10 K). Certainly, with all related details.

There's no silver bullet against misuse but keeping things clear, simple and transparent, clearing up those little nooks where money tend to go out of sight, would be the best strategy to minimize it.

[roof_top_eagle]

You know this whole thing makes me sick, that Sarah Kramer who messed this all up could get so much in severance after 5 months on the job! I worked for a company for 4 years and got no severance when I was laid off and didn't even get EI benefits! Somehow anyone who works for the government gets job security and handsome payouts when they mess up!

I heard on CTV news last night that Kramer got over 300k in severance, not to sure about that figure but it's what I heard.

It makes me sick!

[myata]

I'd agree these corporate perks, "contracts" and payouts should end. No need to pretend we're matching the marketplace tit for tat, we're not. If those "best and brightest" folks can find the same kind of job in the market with superior pay and benefit let them do it by all means. Just hire somebody competent enough to manage a handful of people and an average size high tech project there should be thousands of people with competence out there.

These folks are get paid like they're inventing thermonuke energy, or a cure for cancer, while all they produce is a pathetic far.. (and a lot of expense claims for that).

[Michael Hardner]

The more I read about this recurring issues, the more I realize that the problems with healthcare in Ontario are our fault. ( I live there. )

Ontarians should be demanding better management and improved services, but we continually accept incompetence and graft. To my mind, small 'l' liberals are *more* to blame than right-wingers. This is because the right-wing solution was tried and discarded by the province, but nothing was advanced in its place.

I hated Harris. I marched against Harris many times, but at least he tried to do something. McGuinty leaves a problem alone until focus groups tell him that people are noticing his inaction, then he throws money and press releases at the problem.

I will start another thread on this topic in 'media'.

[Smallc]

According to the CIHI numbers from earlier this year, health in Ontario is getting better.

[Michael Hardner]

We should discuss in the other thread.

[Oleg Bach]

What are you going to do in a system where they catch an offical practicing very lucrative indirect neputism --The fire the person..Give them their 350 thousand a year - send along a bonus of 200 thousand - then a good bye package of another 350 thousand dollars...They reward the crimminal...they find them guilty but still reward them --- that reminds me of a kid who pokes out his sisters eye and dad takes him to McDonalds to celebrate and buys him a new bike on the way home....and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

[joepublic]

E-health is the government of Ontario's fault.

They told the person in charge that this system had to be up and running in a short period of time.

They hired a person who had a history of doing what it took to do the job.

She had the necessary contacts so the only way to do this is hire consultants that have the expertise in the area one is trying to develop.

Unfortunately the economic crash is happening around us, the consultant’s revenues were dramatically decreased, so they started to help themselves to more than they promised and they essentially got their hands caught in the cookie jar.

The tendering process is a long and drawn out way of getting the job done.

I would have to say that when people complain about the slow moving government, tendering is part of that problem.

Tendering is the most fair and cheaper way of completing the job.

As far as e-health is concerned it will now take about a year or so longer to complete.

[capricorn]

E-Health untendered contracts balloon from $5M to $19M. McGuinty says taxpayers are entitled to this information and that is why his government is showing transparency by releasing the damning numbers.

A political spending scandal at eHealth Ontario widened, as new documents emerged showing the value of untendered consulting contracts -- some of them to friends and associates of senior agency officials -- is close to $19 million, $14 million more than first thought.

The figures are among thousands of pages released by the McGuinty Liberal government Wednesday as a gesture of transparency.

----

The firms with connections to eHealth include Courtyard Group, which received $10.5 million in contracts, well in excess of the $2 million known about in the spring. Courtyard's founder, John Ronson, chaired the Liberal party's 1995 election campaign. The firm's founding partner, Michael Guerriere, worked closely for years with Alan Hudson, eHealth's recently resigned chairman.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/todays-p...3567/story.html

Oh, come on people. It's not like Dalton and co. are hiding anything. So open, so transparent, so up front, so kind to their friends, how can Ontarians not forgive the Provincial Liberals. :angry:

[Topaz]

So this will probably be the end of the Libs in the next election or will it. When you look at the PC's( are they PC's or Conservatives) and the new leader being from Harris era, I think people will have some doubt which party to vote for but again a lot of things can change before then. Anyone connected to Harris I couldn't vote for. I'm surprised in the way the Libs have governed and the problems they are having. I really think the Health minister should go.

[capricorn]

McGuinty and Caplan backtracked on a promised independent review of the eHealth's finances, claiming it would duplicate the Provincial Auditor's work.

The opposition parties are asking for answers amid revelations that a promised, and then cancelled, independent review of scandal-plagued eHealth Ontario never got underway.

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A spokeswoman for eHealth confirms the review was never launched, saying the board asked Caplan to drop it after initial consultations with PriceWaterhouseCoopers because there would have been too much duplication with the auditor general's report.

Progressive Conservative Lisa MacLeod says the lack of any contract shows the whole process was a smokescreen and wants to bring eHealth in for all-party questioning to get some answers.

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTV...=TorontoNewHome

That smokescreen may not be as thick as McGuinty would like it. We now find out that McGuinty was personally involved in hiring Sandra Kramer, despite objections by senior bureaucrats and others.

Former eHealth Ontario chief executive officer Sarah Kramer landed the top job at the troubled agency after Premier Dalton McGuinty directly intervened in her appointment, over the objections of some of his own civil servants.

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Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail illuminate the hands-on role played in appointing and supporting eHealth's leaders by Mr. McGuinty. Senior officials in the Ministry of Health had opposed the selection of Ms. Kramer because they felt she did not have enough experience to oversee the daunting task of modernizing the province's medical records, one of the government's top priorities, according to sources close to the situation.

Any obstacle to Ms. Kramer assuming her new duties disappeared the day she met face to face with Mr. McGuinty in his Queen's Park office, documents show.

---

Ms. Kramer did not have to go through the normal channels government agencies use to find a chief executive officer. And Mr. McGuinty was directly involved in her hiring, according to sources close to the situation. The board of directors of a government agency typically appoints the top executive, following a competitive search that identifies a short list of candidates. But Ms. Kramer did not have to compete against others, and she was appointed directly by the premier through an order in council.

Her appointment was requested by Dr. Hudson, a neurosurgeon and former hospital president renowned for fixing problems in health care, and Mr. McGuinty's hand-picked choice for chairman of eHealth Ontario.

Dr. Hudson told the Premier he would take the job on one condition: if he could hire his protégé as chief executive officer, according to the sources.

---

Ms. Kramer, who arrived at the meeting later, told the directors she had met with the Premier that morning to discuss her appointment, the minutes show. A copy of her calendar for that day shows that she met with the Premier at 9:15 that morning for half an hour.

Seven days later, Health Minister David Caplan and cabinet chairman Gerry Phillips signed the order in council, making her appointment official. She took up her new duties on Nov. 3.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation...article1248569/

Imagine that, Teflon Dalton at the centre of the eHealth buddy system. It's no wonder he doesn't want an independent review.Those findings combined with the Auditors would be too much for the Ontario Liberals to handle when the Legislature resumes on September 15. Better to be hit on the head with one bat rather than two.

[Wilber]

Oops, wrong topic. Deleted

Edited August 12, 2009 by Wilber

[Wild Bill]

So this will probably be the end of the Libs in the next election or will it. When you look at the PC's( are they PC's or Conservatives) and the new leader being from Harris era, I think people will have some doubt which party to vote for but again a lot of things can change before then. Anyone connected to Harris I couldn't vote for. I'm surprised in the way the Libs have governed and the problems they are having. I really think the Health minister should go.

Topaz, if the suspicions that McGuinty set up a friend for the top position and allowed her and others to rake off millions, this would be worse than anything Harris ever did!

I am constantly amazed at how you seem to forgive anything from those you like and blame everything up to earthquakes and tsunamis on those you don't.

Right is right and wrong is wrong. If it is proven that Dalton has done what it sure looks like he's done then he's done something very, very wrong.