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Attorney Richard G. Johnson's editorial 3.7.23 -Reposted on Firing of Airica SteedSubmitted by lmcshane on Sun, 08/11/2024 - 09:07.
(DETAILS of Firing https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2024/08/09/metrohealth-fires-ceo-dr--airica-steed The Cuyahoga County Executive Was Supposed to Have Taken Charge of the MetroHealth System by NowRichard G. JohnsonPlaintiff's Lawyer & Sports Agent Malpractice • Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Issues • College Athlete Rights Advocate March 7, 2023 Back in December, this was Chris Ronayne's plan as to how to deal with MetroHealth: Incoming Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne plans to deal with the controversy at MetroHealth System by forming a team to observe operations, conducting an independent audit and possibly replacing some board members in the wake of the firing of the CEO amid allegations of unauthorized self payments. Yet nothing has happened so far, and this failure has resulted in two months of lost opportunities, while the conflicted Board obtained a biased consulting report from BDO US LLP via their retained law firm Tucker Ellis LLP rather than an independent audit under the control of the County Executive's team and office. Now, "“[His] goal is to reposition MetroHealth as a great hospital in our healthcare network,' Ronayne said." Julie Washington, “Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne Steps Up Monitoring of MetroHealth in Wake of Bonus Controversy, Cleveland.com, Mar. 6, 2023. Does our new County Executive not know that MetroHealth is still a great hospital as built by Dr. Akram Boutros and his team, but that it is now at great risk of demise due to an incompetent Board, CEO, and COO? Has the County Executive read any of my articles about the Board? For instance, "The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lies in its Answer to Dr. Akram Boutros; or "The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lie Out of Both Sides of their Mouths." Has the County Executive read my article about the new CEO, "The Sham Search for Dr. Akram Boutros’s Successor?" Metro has still not responded to my public records request for Dr. Steed's bona fides, but in my follow-up post to this article, her qualifications seem suspect, and her own statements about her lack of experience that are quoted in the comments thereto are beyond belief. Has the County Executive read my article about the new COO, "The MetroHealth System Is Poised to Sink Like a Rock without Dr. Akram Boutros?" His hiring and job description materially changed other's job descriptions, thus giving other executives the right to leave with severance, as explained in my article, The MetroHealth System's Death Spiral Has Begun …. To me its obvious that it's clean sweep time. Under Ohio law, the County Executive can terminate the entire Board for neglect and other reasons, and I think he should do so immediately and appoint a completely new Board. Ohio Revised Code Section 339.02 (H). The new Board can deal with the CEO/COO problem. Under Ohio law, Metro can pay its trustees a stipend for their time, and given that Metro is bigger than the County, the new County Executive might think about whether it is practical to have a volunteer Board overseeing a $1.6BB hospital system. Ohio Revised Code Section 339.02 (I). Plus, providing a stipend would allow the County Executive to lower the average age of the Board closer to the average age in the County, which would bring a more active composition to the Board, much like the County Council. Needless to say, the Board composition should reflect the demographics of the County, and there are plenty of qualified people available to serve in each demographic. Volunteering on a non-profit board is one thing, but when the non-profit is a huge operating business, different skills and oversight are needed, with significant time demands, that the current Board was simply not willing to expend as the trustees freely admitted in their Q&A with the Cleveland Plain Dealer back in December. (I have applied to be appointed to the Board, but I would not do so without a clean sweep and without a reasonable stipend for the twenty-to-forty hours a month that would be required to do that job correctly.) My view is that a new Board solves all of the problems that I know of, since the current Board created those problems by terminating Dr. Boutros without cause. All the Board had to do was decide and award Dr. Boutros's resubmitted bonuses and then coast another six weeks until his retirement. Instead, they fired the nuclear ICBM. Lack of judgment would be an understatement. Metro is audited every year. There is no allegation of missing money. So why order a redundant audit? Like everything else, the Board asked for one to misdirect focus, but if you don't have money missing, what is there to audit? Other than the cost of the auditors and the time spent by Metro staff, there's no harm to another audit, but it's not going to do any good, because you can't audit judgment or the lack thereof. With a new Board, I'd do everything possible to rehire Dr. Boutros, and within reason, I'd pay him what he asked for back in 2021, which was fair and reasonable, and then enough to make amends for how he has been mistreated. Obviously, he'd need to be paid for the damages that the Board has caused, which can be recovered by the new Board from the old trustee's D&O coverage, after they are terminated. (Trial is now scheduled for early December, and how the current Board compared to a new Board will handle settlement negotiations seems obvious to me. But one way or another, it seems that this dispute will be resolved by the end of this year, not years from now.) Needless to say, Dr. Boutros needs a complete public apology, because he did absolutely nothing wrong—he gave so much to this County and to Metro that it's unfathomable that this dispute was even allowed to become public let alone become a war. I find it beyond annoying that the County Executive three months later is still talking about what he's going to do about this dispute, when he originally promised to take action as soon as he took office. If the County consolidated Metro's financials as it should, Metro would be more than half the County's revenue and expenses, and it would be two-thirds of its workforce. Possibly the largest benefit people get from the County is Metro, yet all the County has to pay for this is $32MM, and of that, $7MM is diverted to the County addiction board. Metro's billion dollar bond float is NOT guaranteed by the County. Historically, Metro has been paid little attention by the County, when it should be integral to the County's problem solving potential. If I were the County Executive, I'd pay a lot more attention to Metro. Fire the current Board, appoint an excellent new one, settle with Dr. Boutros ASAP, hire him if possible or find a real replacement, and continue with making Metro a multiplier of good in this County. *****Index to other articles I have written on this dispute: Here's a list of the articles I've written here on the Akram Boutros/MetroHealth Board dispute: 12/08/22: MetroHealth Is Dr. Boutros, In Case You Don't Know or Remember What It Was, available at https://lnkd.in/g3R3mEFV 12/10/22: Why Can't the Metro Board Apologize to Dr. Akram Boutros?, available at https://lnkd.in/g6pEVyzh 12/15/22: The Sham Search for Dr. Akram Boutros’s Successor, available at https://lnkd.in/gHz-747C 12/21/22: Why Can't the Plain Dealer Admit It's Flat-Out Wrong About Dr. Akram Boutros?, available at https://lnkd.in/gYUH6Gsh 12/24/22: The Plain Dealer Almost Apologizes to Dr. Akram Boutros!, available at https://lnkd.in/gfAAaYMJ 12/29/22: The MetroHealth System Is Poised to Sink Like a Rock without Dr. Akram Boutros, available at https://lnkd.in/giMJHK5f 01/04/23: When Does the Plain Dealer Cross the Threshold of Malice Towards Dr. Akram Boutros?, available at https://lnkd.in/gZ7XJVpC 01/14/23: The MetroHealth System and the Plain Dealer Smear Dr. Akram Boutros by Repeating Knowingly False Allegations, available at https://lnkd.in/gMv6ivyG 01/23/23: The MetroHealth System Drags Its Feet in Responding to my Public Records Requests Regarding its Board's Misconduct Towards Dr. Akram Boutros, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-system-drags-its-feet-responding-my-public-johnson 01/29/23: The MetroHealth System's Death Spiral Has Begun …, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-systems-death-spiral-has-begun-richard-g-johnson 02/04/23: Would the Plain Dealer Please Stop Running Press Releases for the Metro Board?, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-already-know-cleveland-plain-dealer-sides-system-board-johnson 02/07/23: Stiffing Public Records Requests the Metro Way!, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stiffing-public-records-requests-metro-way-richard-g-johnson 02/18/23: Can You Believe How Hard It Is to Get Public Records from Metro?, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-you-believe-how-hard-get-public-records-from-metro-johnson/ 02/21/23: The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lies in its Answer to Dr. Akram Boutros, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-system-board-trustees-lies-its-answer-richard-g-johnson 03/05/23: The MetroHealth System Board of Trustees Lie Out of Both Sides of their Mouths, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metrohealth-system-board-trustees-lie-out-both-sides-mouths-johnson 03/07/23: The Cuyahoga County Executive Was Supposed to Have Taken Charge of the MetroHealth System by Now, available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cuyahoga-county-executive-supposed-have-taken-charge-system-johnson
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Letter sent to MetroHealth Employees - Firing of Steed
Dear MetroHealth employees,
A short time ago, the Board of Trustees voted to terminate Dr. Airica Steed’s at-will contract as President & CEO of The MetroHealth System.
We know this news will surprise and disappoint many of you, and it certainly is not an outcome that any of us on the Board wanted. When we hired Dr. Steed almost two years ago, Dr. Walker led the Search Committee. All of us on the Board had high expectations that she would be an outstanding leader for you and the System. We embraced and fully supported her often-stated commitment to Health Equity, an idea embedded in the DNA of MetroHealth long before any of us were here.
Unfortunately, this Board has concluded that Dr. Steed is not the right leader to deliver on those expectations and aspirations. It has become clear to all of us that the Board and Dr. Steed fundamentally disagree about the priorities and performance standards needed from our CEO for MetroHealth to fulfill its mission. We believe Dr. Steed’s performance is not meeting the needs of MetroHealth.
As a result, we have lost confidence in her ability to lead the organization going forward and believe it would not be in the best interest of the System for her to continue in her position. Therefore, we are exercising our right to terminate her at-will contract, effective immediately.
We wish Dr. Steed and her family good health and future success. We also believe we needed to act now for the good of the System, of you – our incredibly hard-working employees - and of the people we serve.
Make no mistake, we are not backing away from our commitments to Health Equity, to excellence in healthcare, education and research, to creating an ethos of safety and patient-centered care amid a great, inclusive and diverse work environment. We will continue the critical work of the Institute for H.O.P.E. and of initiatives like the PRIDE Clinic, School Health Program, Lincoln-West School of Science & Health High School and Maternal and Infant Health. We will support the ongoing efforts of senior leadership to improve access, to make our operations more efficient and to put us on the path to financial sustainability. We are confident that this leadership team will rise to the challenges we face.
Going forward, we all need to reaffirm our commitment to the mission of MetroHealth, to the people we serve and to one another. Let’s continue bringing hope, compassion and great healthcare to everyone. That’s what makes MetroHealth so essential – and why all of us do what we do.
Thank you,
Harry Walker, MD, Chair, MetroHealth Board of Trustees
John Moss, Vice Chair
John Corlett, Secretary
Inajo Davis Chappell, Member
Maureen Dee, Member
Sharon Dumas, Member
Ronald Dziedzicki, Member
Nancy Mendez, Member
Michael Summers, Member
Richard G. Johnson: ONE Sick Board
The only period in Metro’s modern history that it worked well was when business genius Tom McDonald was chair and visionary Akram Boutros, MD was CEO. After McDonald retired from the Board, new chairs Vanessa Whiting and then Harry Walker were simply incompetent to work with Dr. Boutros, and because the Board was so bad, Dr. Boutros chose to retire early and not seek to renew his contract. Since the Board had no justification for not working to retain their visionary, who frankly was not replaceable, they created a fraudulent scandle that Dr. Boutros had hid his compensation from the Board, which was not true at all, in order to attempt to save face for being unable to retain their visionary.
As far as the current mess, the Board awarded Dr. Steed her full performance bonus in March, after conducting her performance review, and while that review was a mixed bag, if she did well enough to earn her full bonus, her termination was not about her performance.
It also wasn’t about racism. The past and current Board chairs are black, at least a third of the Board is black, she as CEO was black, and so was her hand-picked COO. She had the absolute power to terminate anyone who disrespected her. It is simply not possible for the boss to be discriminated against by her employees.
It also wasn’t about employees’ loyalty to Dr. Boutros. He was the one who announced a year in advance that he was not renewing his contract and was retiring, because the Board would not renegotiate his contract. Certainly, firing him six weeks before retirement was atrocious conduct that upset the entire hospital staff, but that had nothing to do with Dr. Steed. In fact, in October of 2022, Dr. Boutros and his wife flew to Chicago to meet Dr. Steed and to take her and her husband out to dinner, so that she would know that he was available to help her transition into her new position. He wanted her to succeed, and she knew that. So did everybody else, as he publicly said so to the Metro community.
From her most recent interview, it seems that she had conflict with Metro’s Board and General Counsel, because she apparently had voiced objection to their obstruction of justice by tampering with and destroying evidence that vindicated Dr. Boutros. Dr. Steed has her doctorate in ethical leadership in addition to her MBA and nursing degree, and as the head of Metro, all such criminal conduct could be imputed to her and the hospital. It seems that she was illegally terminated for blowing the whistle on this criminal conduct. There’s going to be hell to pay.
If she reported it to the Board, where are the minutes to that meeting?
To gain protection under the whistleblower statutes, she had to report this conduct to some appropriate person or entity, so let’s see the report(s) or minutes. We know she had to have reported it to someone, or the Board rationally wouldn’t have risked firing her.
Note, too, that termination without cause means just that; if she had been terminated for performance reasons, that would have been for cause and documented pursuant to her contract and sound business practices.
Ridiculous MH Clinic grant with WRLC
https://news.metrohealth.org/metrohealth-collaborates-with-cleveland-clinic-western-reserve-land-conservancy-to-advance-health-equity/
Archived at Wayback Machine
The project, developed in collaboration with population health researchers from The MetroHealth System and Cleveland Clinic, targets four Cleveland neighborhoods: Buckeye-Woodhill, Hough, St. Clair-Superior, and Glenville. These communities, historically impacted by environmental and social disinvestment, will benefit from comprehensive strategies designed to improve key Social Determinants of Health (SDOH).
The initiative aligns with two Leading Health Indicators (LHIs) identified in Healthy People 2030:
Selected SDOH Domains:
Impact and Vision: This project seeks to produce both immediate and long-term health benefits. Cleaner air, lower temperatures, and reduced chronic disease burden are among the immediate outcomes expected. Over time, the initiative will generate actionable data and insights, providing a replicable model for other cities facing similar challenges with racial health equity, climate change impacts, and population loss.
* Bullshit
This federal money follows WRLC latest vacant land project Clevlot - https://www.clevlot.org/ another major piece of BS. Also archived at the Wayback Machine.
The Cleveland Vacant Land Opportunity Tool (CLEVLOT) is a project funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It started in 2022 and ran for two years. The main goal was to find ways to make it easier for people to reuse vacant land in Cleveland, Ohio, with a special focus on the Cleveland Land Bank.
Project Timeline
The grant timeline will be from February 2022 to February 2024. 2022 will consist of convening stakeholders and forming working groups to define the current issues with vacant land reuse. 2023 will see the development of a pilot project and developing a planning tool for more accessible and transparent vacant land reuse.
ONE Sick Board continued -Boutros vindicated
“Despite how my tenure ended, my 10 years at MetroHealth were the most gratifying of my career,” Boutros said in the release. “I love the staff and patients and am honored to have led a team that significantly improved health care in Cuyahoga County, and shepherded MetroHealth to become the most socially responsible health system in Ohio.”
I don't know how Dr. Boutros can be gracious when his life was ruined by an incompetent board - an incompetent board that also hobbled Dr. Boutros' brilliant remaking of MetroHealth.
Vanessa Whiting chaired the board that fired Dr. Boutros and she and the rest of the then board and the current board bear responsibility for the unnecessary and stupid chaos staff has endured.
The current MetroHealth board needs to release a statement and an apology. Both to Dr. Boutros-- and to Airica Steed, RN Ph.D.
Steed, the first female and Black CEO of MetroHealth, said the board did not raise any concerns to her about her performance, the CJN previously reported. She said she also raised concerns to the board regarding how it handled the Boutros case and said other senior leaders of color within MetroHealth have been subject to racial slurs and remarks and the board ignored complaints.
The board must stop blaming everyone but themselves for the hospital's performance. Fortunately, with Dr. Alexander Ranger now at the helm, I am hopeful. We must support our county healthcare.