Thread regarding Ascension Health layoffs

@7sdqf+16Zk9bY5 look at all of the other ventures they have created. Look at how they behave, like a private equity firm. Do you think they care now that they control all sorts of other money making ventures? The hospitals and doctors were just a means to an end.

Eventually, it will matter. Doctors, clinicians, etc. will leave, patient care will suffer. Local ministries will eventually make the decision to break away from Ascension. The word will get out and family practices, pediatricians, etc. will steer their patients to other hospital systems which exist in the communities. I remain convinced that eventually, Ascension themselves will make the decision to move back to an on-premise service model after the third-world outsourcing company repeatedly fails to deliver, which it will, it always does. One thing they don't say is about how turnover at Indian IT firms is horrendous. The average tenure is 18 months whilst in the US it's above 15 years so in Indian firms are constantly training new employees...

Hearing that the Ascension users are very unhappy - but does that matter? Does the bad effect on patient care matter?

Has anyone heard anything new, regarding App&Plats? I hear rumors they could be let go July 2021. Hoping someone who knows takes the time to share on this post, so we have time to prepare. Since your posting will be anonymous, I hope you share the truth.

Still employed by department I wish to remain unknown but I refuse to call AT.

This Is not a surprise to employees who’ve been with AT through the last correction in 2008. AT first entered into a off-shore migration plan in early 2000 after India had put thousands of their students on a Marshall Plan type knowledge grab in the Automotive and ProdOps technology. We’d typically “partner” with someone in India and trained them on our systems. Problem was that our leaders drunk the water of assimilation and NAFTA off shore was born. They had to give this thing a name and called It BEST SHORE - That’s what AT coded the agreement with a plan to implement later when the right suitor was found. The first go with BEST SHORE was around 2007 or 2008. India took over IT and quality just tanked until AT had to pull the plug within 2 years of the migration - They literally had to rebuild IT services and create the Service Desk that we utilized until Nov 23rd. What they have now that was not available in 2005 was Cloud Services - Give the Physician’s their eye candy and what’s left? Service will continue to be second to none and the surveys will again tell us that lousy service will still halt innovation - People will still hit 911 cause they would rather speak to someone that can understand their need. Remember that every one of every color is not your kind. Let’s see this works out AGAIN!

@1jwap+16Zk9bY5 - Irish Americans are not a protected class. :)

No offers to Irish Americans either..

@1dqdm+16Zk9bY5 - I did not notice that but I was virtual and only met a handful of the dozens of teammates I worked with for 10 years.

Has anyone noticed that NOT ONE African American was offered a position to stay on with Ascension out of ALL the people laid off? And yes there were several people who stayed on or "found" other positions.

HCL had data breaches. https://threatpost.com/data-leak-hcl-customer-info/144919/

I was offered a position with HCL and took it, but then got a better offer from outside and took it. It was pretty sudden, they actually cut off my access a day sooner than they were supposed to so I didn't get to say a proper goodbye. Hadn't actually really looked back, but I just realized that today was the actual, official End Of Life for the Service Desk, and got surprisingly a little sentimental about it.

Hope you guys are all doing alright. This place wasn't nothing.

@10zeh+16Zk9bY5 - I got the letter from Prudential concerning the same thing and I don't see anything wrong with it. They're not trying to cold call you, they are offering to convert your company paid life insurance policy to a private policy. If you don't already have your own life insurance policy AND you don't want your family to have to do a Go Fund Me to cover your funeral costs should you leave this earth prematurely, converting your policy might be a good idea. All the best!

Evidently AT has also given "partners" our information so that the "partners" can make a buck. I had a gentleman (sounded like an outsourcer) call me "from Prudential" trying to get me to to convert my life. He was at least honest enough to admit that he was not just a Prudential employee, but also a Prudential insurance agent and he would make a buck if I converted over to his policy. I asked him to send me an email with the numbers before he called, but nope. I've asked him for them since - nada. Unreal. Wonder how much AT makes in kickbacks?

Lame its only about 800 a year u have in what they offering...

Severance packages emails coming tomorrow Tuesday 11/10

What is the shelf life of a full time employee at Ascension? 1 or 2 years max?

Being a current employee. We complain daily about the system performance and will continue to do so no matter what. We don’t like jobs being taken from Americans and sent overseas to people that do not even understand what we are saying. So just know people are and have been resistant for what Ascension has done.

One thing the third-party partner doesn't specialize in is communicating with people who speak English but Ascension has always handled their docs with kids gloves so they will dial "9" and get a service desk associate here in the US...

Here's the spiel of b—s— emailed at any given ministry now (edited for concerns of anonymity):

What’s Happening?
As Ascension Technologies continues to drive innovation and enhance capabilities to meet healthcare needs, they have begun shifting some technology functions to third-party partners who specialize in these services.

One of these services, the Service Desk, has begun their transition to our new partner which will be complete on xxxxx. The service desk will use a mix of ascension associates as well as a mix of U.S. and offshore associates.

Who’s Impacted?
Any associate who needs to contact the Service Desk.
Physicians will now press "9" instead of "7" to be directed to the physician line.
What do you need to know?

xxxxx associates have multiple ways to contact the Ascension Technologies Service Desk for technical support assistance:
By phone using our existing local phone numbers

By email: ais.servicedesk@ascension.org

NEW...By Google Chat for G Suite users: Additional access instructions coming soon!

Physicians will need to press "9" to be directed to the physician line.

Associates calling the Service Desk will be requested, but not required, to enter their Ascension Employee ID before connecting with a Service Desk representative. Providing an Employee ID helps enhance the phone call experience by pre-populating basic information – name, location, service history, etc. – and allows the Service Desk representative to answer questions or respond to issues more quickly.

If you would like to provide feedback on your service desk experience, please use the feedback option in the email you receive when the ticket is closed. Click on the link "Click HERE to take the survey"
then fill in required fields and add issue details to the box "What one thing could we do to imporve our overall service?"

@Evyq+16Zk9bY5 - That is HCL's business model, hire 10-20% of the previous staff so they've got brains to pick and then let them go when they've got the learning curve behind them. The problem is the language/dialect difference and bad VoIP connection is always going to be there...

does HCL allow lunch breaks?

I was on the service desk and was offered a position by HCL. The pay cut was massive, but even if it matched what I currently was making then I would have still left. They only offered to keep what seemed like 10-20% of the SD agents. But what will happen in 6 months after the India agents have figured out the random issues that plague new hires. They will let the OG agents go as they no longer need the knowledge from the OGs.

LMAO, this HCL company...They don't pay you for BREAKS and lunches...

Lady calls because she needs her network password reset. Tells me she was speaking to someone from India, who she couldn't understand, and eventually the person from India hung up on her. Took me all of 3 minutes to get her logged in. Checked her ticket history and the HCL person closed the ticket as referral saying they directed the user to call R1...for an Ascension issue. Best part? User wasn't even with R1. She was employed directly by Ascension. Smh. At least the call volume isn't insane anymore...

Resolver calls about not being able to hear the CRT from India...I'm like neither can we...Enjoy

Looking at the Tableau reports for the Service Desk this month... mostly negative EU feedback for the Service Desk's HCL folks... and it seems to be mainly because of language difficulties, not able to understand Indian dialect. I assume HCL has their own completely different set of metrics they have to meet regarding first call resolutions and average time per call too. Not looking good so far, but one would THINK that this was to be expected, but then again WHO KNOWS? Ascension is getting what they paid for at least in the customer service area. At least they've been pushing this "Share your perceptions of inclusion at Ascension" survey, so it gives us a chance to give our opinion...not that it matters a hill of beans though.

@Btzo+16Zk9bY5 it is not. The feci is really going to hit the fan after all of you are gone. St Louis has no clue, none what so ever. They simply do not understand IT/HIT. All they see is how Exxxpensive it is. They think everything can be fixed lickety split with documentation. Any position above Sr Director adds no value to the organization at all. That layer is the real problem in healthcare.

I'm on the Service Desk and I've had customers and revolvers say they are so happy they got me instead of one of the people from India. It doesn't seem to be going well...

No, HCL is not better. Misrouted tickets, CRT doesn't know how to ... do their job. Not enough people working on their side so the remaining resolver groups getting absolutely overwhelmed with tickets. P2s maybe being acknowledged, but not even a call back. Serious communication issues. Gerry, Gerry, Gerry...you and your team need to spend less time on your Pelotons and meditation, and more time using your creativity to develop business plans that work.

Is HCL Technologies Limited the only thing left of ascension?

I've only talked to HCL for Symphony Level 2, BYOD, and CRT calls. All of which have been a sh– show. I can't imagine the HCL SDAs taking calls for our ministries are any better.

is HCL better?

The Service Desk is being laid off in waves with the last day for the SD being November 25th. But, HCL has already taken over for several of the ministries.

@yrql+16Zk9bY5 - The first round was over (enterprise compute) this past Saturday. I beleive the service desk, NOC, and SOC gets laid off in November.

layoffs over now?

@wmqr+16Zk9bY5 - I assume you are a current service desk employee. My advice to you to be taken or ignored is to tread very lightly. They (Ascension) haven't said it but they are giving you a severance package in exchange for you passing along knowledge to HCL employees when asked until your last day and if leadership gets the idea that you are not cooperating, they can immediately terminate you and revoke your severance package (it's already happened.) Keep in mind our quarrel is not with HCL and it's employees but is with greedy Ascension upper leaders...

Lady calls and wants me to train her at the level one desk on how to do her job. I refused, she wanted a manager/supervisor...she got the hang-up.

Still here you guys will definitely be missed. The systems have been running like garbage since last Monday. It’s going to be like the titanic

@rnix+16Zk9bY5 - No one knows for sure except for e-level leadership and they haven't been forthcoming on what their strategic plan is other than some vague statements. I do note that they just hired a new, outside VP over apps who has global transformation experience (read into that what you will.) Just a hunch on my part, if you work in support of one of the new applications being developed in one of their new digital studios OR you support a legacy application that will be dying in the next year or so, then you are fairly safe. If you support a legacy application that will live on indefinitely then you might not be safe. As has been said before, if your job is currently being done remotely then it can be done remotely from India. Again, I have no inside track to what leadership is thinking, just a guess based on what is currently happening to enterprise compute, service desk, NOC, SOC, etc.

One thing Ascension leadership is getting ready to learn is while they are going to save quite a bit of money outsourcing to HCL, average employee tenure with a company in India (~1.5 yrs) is considerably less than it is with Ascension (~10-20 yrs.) HCL is going to be continually training new employees on critical enterprise systems that in many cases are one-offs despite Ascension's goal of standardizing across the enterprise. I will miss the paycheck but I am glad I won't be there to see the s&*t show that is getting ready to occur.