Chapter Seventy-Seven
Trapper hurriedly gathered all the paperwork spread it out on his desk; calculations, graphs, annotated cases. He knew he was going to be late for the board meeting, but he still had a smile on his face because he would be seeing Leah, even if it was only as part of the meeting…at first. The end of the meeting would signal the end of their day at the hospital…he hoped…and he planned to take Leah to dinner and dancing after which he would whisk her back to his house and introduce her to his bedroom properly.
With his paperwork stacked neatly, he tucked it under his arm and headed for the elevator, whistling a little tune and nodding as he passed by the nurse's station where Ernie and Gloria looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
"I don't think I've ever seen him so happy on his way to a board meeting," said Gloria.
Ernie snickered. "It probably has something to do with our newest board member," she said, prompting a nod and a smile from Gloria.
"You know, I caught him a couple of days ago with a little black box in his hand, studying whatever it was inside. When he realized I was there, he snapped it shut and put it in his pocket," said Gloria.
"Really? He said he'd never do that again…that it costs too much."
"Maybe that's why he was looking at it so hard," laughed Gloria.
Trapper and Leah reached the door of the conference room at the same time, Leah with her arms full of folders, charts and graphs.
"You're late," admonished Trapper, waiting for her to take her last two steps, and then opening the door.
"What's your excuse?" she hotly whispered back. He shrugged and stepped aside to let her through the door, following in after her.
The only two chairs left were across the table from each other right in the middle of the eight board members already seated along the sides of the table with Arnold at the head.
"Glad you decided to join us," said Arnold, scowling.
"I apologize," said Leah, addressing the entire table. "I just got out of an interview."
Trapper set his arm full down on the table, and pulled out his chair to be seated. "My excuse isn't so noble. I was just putting the finishing touches on these charts. I'm anxious to get the board's approval to submit these requests for the grants we'll be discussing."
"First, Ms. Haverty has some change requests for our computer systems she'd like to discuss for approval. Ms. Haverty, you have the floor."
"Thank you, Mr. Slocum," she said with a charming smile. When she stood Trapper noticed her attire, a deep blue suit with a skirt…not slacks…a white shirt with a cross tie. Her hair was up on her head, though not pulled as tightly as she had when he first met her. She walked around the table setting handouts in front of each person. As she passed Trapper, he frowned and groaned at her stilettos. Stopping at the sound, she looked back to see the scowl on his face, narrowed her eyes and continued around the table.
Standing in front of her chair, she again addressed the table. "Ladies and gentlemen, you have in front of you all the requests I've received so far from the departments outlining changes or enhancements they would like to see made to the applications each of them use. Along with each request, you have a time and cost estimate for each of the modifications. In addition, you have a summary sheet ranking each change by severity and cost as well as the percentage of the data processing budget each one would consume. As you can see, this represents one quarter of the budget which is in line with our plan to perform quarterly releases for upgrades to the system."
There was a moment of silence as the board members studied the requests and summary. "Ms. Haverty, have you evaluated each request for necessity."
"Yes, Mr. Wainwright. When I asked for input from the departments, I asked them to submit those things that would make their departments more productive. I can't speak to how they determined that since each department performs some fairly unique tasks, and I'm not familiar with them all. However, for those that I sent back questions, I found the answers to be more than substantive. I don't feel any of these changes are frivolous. In fact, it's unusual for the first round of requests on a new system to be wasteful. That will come as the departments become more familiar with their applications, at which time, there will be some requests I won't even bring to the board for approval. There will eventually be some infrastructure enhancement requests as well as tuning requests coming from me as part of our quarterly releases that will be in competition for funds with the department requests, so this process will become more difficult. Since this is the first quarter, this one is fairly straight forward."
Mr. Wainwright smiled and nodded, having no idea what Leah had just said.
"Perhaps since this is the first round, we should approve these requests since they're within the planned budget," said Arnold, looking around the table at each nod. "As we move forward, Ms. Haverty, if we have competition for the budgeted funds, would it be possible for each department head to present his or her case and explain what advantages their requested enhancements will have?"
"As each one learns the process, it will become more beneficial to the board in making that decision. I will assist each one with time and cost estimates."
"Very good," said Arnold. "Let the record show that all the submitted department requests are approved."
Trapper was looking curiously at the stacks still sitting in front of Leah when the subject of federal grants came up. He quickly sat up in his chair.
"As you all know," began Arnold, "each year the federal government makes available a limited number of grants to medical institutions. The amount of each grant is not set, but rather is doled out from a lump sum approved by Congress. This year they will be handing out twenty-five million. Dr. McIntyre has been preparing a bid for part of that money. Dr. McIntyre."
"Thank you, Arnold. As I've been saying for over a year now, the hospital needs to update our equipment and our specialized knowledge. Newer technologies are available now, and we're being left behind compared to other hospitals in the area. I'm specifically talking about microvascular surgery, laser surgery and Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI. For microvascular surgery, we need no special equipment, but we need additional money to attract a competent, qualified group of surgeons as well as to begin a training program for our existing surgical staff. I'd also like to be on the ground floor of laser technology by opening the first Laser Surgery Center in Northern California to include research and education. We'll be in competition with UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, but they already have so many specialized centers and even though they are known as a teaching hospital, I think we have a good chance. Our target student will be established surgeons looking to advance their knowledge while UC Davis works mainly with graduate students and interns. Our other competition is Bay General and Sutter Medical Center, also in Sacramento.
The last piece of the package is the need for two MRI machines. I won't try to explain the technology behind them, but I will show you the difference in X-ray or CT scan films and what we'll see out of an MRI machine." Trapper passed films in both directions around the table, waited and watched the expressions on the faces of the board members. He knew the pictures would speak louder than anything he could say.
"Dr. McIntyre, will you be submitting all three under one grant proposal or doing separate proposals for each?" asked Mrs. Beauchamp.
"I'll be doing one proposal under the subject of technology updates."
"And will you be writing the grant or will you hire a grant writer?"
Trapper snorted. "Unfortunately, I don't have the budget for a grant writer. They're pricey."
"All right, if Dr. McIntyre is finished," said Arnold, raising his brows at Trapper and waiting for a response. Trapper nodded. "Ms. Haverty would like to present her grant bid for the board's approval."
Trapper turned and gave Leah a surprised, but hard look.
"Thank you again, Mr. Slocum. I realize it seems odd that I would be asking for a non-medical grant when the grant money is earmarked for medical institutions, however, we are quickly approaching a point where an upgrade of the hospital data storage technology will be necessary, especially with Dr. McIntyre's plans for expansion and improved services. We currently use sixteen inch reel tapes for long term data storage. We have two machines which use cartridge tape." She pulled a reel and a cartridge out of a large envelope and set them on the conference table, then rose and went to an easel, hanging a large chart and graph, referring to them as she continued to speak. "As you can see, the physical storage requirement for a cartridge tape is much less than for a reel tape. We also have a staff of technicians who do nothing but pull tapes from our tape library and mount them to satisfy data requests on the system. Because we are required by the federal government to retain certain data for ten years, we back up data every night, sending a copy to offsite storage, but we also keep copies in our own tape library for three years. In the nine months since the system was first brought online, fifty percent of the tape library capacity has been used. It's good news that the hospital has increased its patients, but it's bad news for our storage capacity, and if Dr. McIntyre is successful in his grant bid, our patient numbers could rise exponentially. What I'd like to propose is a silo and robot for storage. This type of storage is cutting edge technology, but would increase our onsite storage capacity by one thousand percent without any physical expansion. The silo and robot would be built in half the space of our current tape library and would handle storage and retrieval of up to ten thousand cartridge tapes. We would still require a small staff to load cartridges into the silo and maintain the robot, but it would drop our personnel in that area by seventy-five percent. In addition, we can begin to send our cartridge tapes to our offsite storage facility, thereby saving money because we would not require as much storage space."
"Ms. Haverty, would you please explain what you mean by a silo and a robot," said Arnold.
"Of course. A silo is exactly what it sounds like. It's a cylindrical structure in which a robot sits in the middle. The walls of the silo are slots where the cartridge tapes reside. When a data request requires data stored on a cartridge tape, the computer programming sends the location of the tape to the robot which spins inside the silo, locates the slot the tape occupies, pulls the tape from its slot, and then inserts the tape in one of many cartridge reader machines on the lower rings of the silo. Once the tape is no longer required, the robot will eject the tape from the machine and return it to its slot. The robot spins so fast that the entire process takes only a few seconds." She passed packages around the table. "These are the figures for the purchase and installation of the equipment and the application that comes with the equipment that will be integrated into our system. Also, you have the costs of cartridge versus reel tapes, in addition to the storage costs of each medium and the total savings by converting everything to cartridge tape."
As the board members quietly studied Leah's handouts, Mrs. Beauchamp asked, "And will you writing your grant application, Ms. Haverty?"
"No. I have a colleague who writes grants professionally and has agreed to help me…gratis, of course. I will also be taking some personal time off to go to Washington myself to lobby for this grant."
"Just a minute," said Trapper. "If we submit two grant applications, the likelihood that only one will be awarded is almost guaranteed. Increasing the storage capacity of our computer systems is putting the cart before the horse, isn't it?"
Leah stiffened, her back rigid. She cocked her neck, but stopped short of popping it. "Dr. McIntyre, the risk is the same on both fronts. If you are awarded your grant, the computer system will be unable to handle the extra patient load. There are generally twenty to twenty-five grants awarded, so it should be possible for each grant to stand on its own merit." She shrugged. "We're going to need to increase capacity soon anyway."
"Computer technology isn't the purpose of these grants," he countered, scowling.
Smiling spitefully, she replied, "The grants can be for anything needed by any medical institution. That isn't just hospitals. It includes research facilities, teaching facilities and infrastructure."
Leaning forward and clasping his hands on the conference table, Arnold breathed deeply. "It appears to me both grant applications have merit and would only complement each other if both win. So, we'll vote on each grant individually and both grants by a show of hands. All those in favor of only Dr. McIntyre's grant application, please raise your hand. All those in favor of just Ms. Haverty's. And all those in favor of both." Everyone raised their hand for the last option.
"Dr. McIntyre, Ms. Haverty, we wish both of you the best of luck. I believe that concludes today's business. Is there a motion to adjourn." Mr. James raised a finger and nodded. "This meeting is adjourned."
As Leah collected her handouts and papers, the room cleared except for Trapper who sat back in his chair, glaring at her. "Do you honestly think a robot is more important than a new laser center or an MRI machine? This is a hospital where our priority is healing the sick."
"I can't agree with you more," she said, stacking her collection of paperwork neatly in front of her. "However with that responsibility comes the government's oversight requirements. Without one, you can't have the other, so they have to go hand-in-hand. That makes both important."
"Leah, I don't have the time to go to Washington to lobby for this grant. I have patients."
"Then hire someone to lobby for you."
"I don't have the budget," he snapped.
"Dr. McIntyre, you are the Chief of Surgery of this hospital. Surely you have the authority to delegate. Aren't there other doctors who can take care of your patients while you're gone? Dr. Gates, maybe? It seems to me if you really wanted to win this grant, you'd be more willing to do what it takes to win it."
"My patients depend on me; not someone else," he said, rising from his chair and leaning over the table toward her.
"Perhaps you should think about the greater good," she said coldly as she passed him on her way to the door.
"What about dinner?" he said, spinning around.
She stopped as she opened the door and looked back. "I don't think I want to spend the evening with a man who's angry with me." Before Trapper could respond, she was gone.
Gathering all his paperwork, he left the conference room and barely made it to the elevator before the door closed. Both were silent as they rode the elevator down until it stopped at the fourth floor for Trapper's office.
When the door opened, Gonzo was there. "I'm glad I ran into you two. I thought we could all go to the Titanic for a glass of wine before you leave for dinner.
"No, thank you," came the biting reply in unison after which Trapper continued to his office, the elevator door closed, and Leah continued home. Gonzo stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the closed door for a moment before he shrugged and pushed the down button.