At Least It's Not Maximus.....

MayTheSourceBeWithYou
OUTVille

Up until all the recent kuffufle demonstrated that US giant Maximus has been completely useless at taking care of British Columbia's MSP and Pharmacare inquiries, there was a lot of speculation that these Masters of Call-Line Disaster were also going to get the private contract to run the province's NurseLine.

The NurseLine allows anyone in BC to call up a nurse anytime to get advice. It's good practice, it gives assurance (my wife and I have used it with sick babies), and it's designed to cut down on needless emergency room visits.

And it is so successful that last year it reportedly received 250,000 calls.

So, apparently, we should all be immensely relieved that the contract has gone to the private company 'Clinidata' which is described in the official BC Govt Press Release in the following manner:

"An established provider of telehealth services in Canada has been selected to proceed to contract development negotiations, as government seeks a new contractor to deliver BC NurseLine and other related services in British Columbia.

Following an intensive nine-month competitive process, Clinidata Corporation has emerged as the preferred candidate. As Canada’s leading provider of patient-centred telehealth advisory, nursing triage and health information services, Clinidata has the program management and information technology skills to address the current and future requirements of BC NurseLine and BC HealthGuide.

The company already operates telehealth services in both Ontario and New Brunswick. With more than 350 professional nurses across six telehealth centres, Clinidata is the largest nursing triage service in Canada, and among the top five providers of nurse tele-triage in the world."

Sounds pretty good, huh. After all, couldn't help but notice that emphasis on Clinidata's 'Canadianness' in every single paragraph of the lead.

So why then did the propaganda-puff-piece also slip the following statement?

"The new proponent will be required to meet or exceed all of British Columbia’s stringent privacy laws."

That raised our eyebrows, perhaps even more so than Sean Holman's suggestion that Clinidata has had Maximus-like problems of it's own in the past.

Specifically, we went sniffing about to find out who actually controls Clinidata.

Turns out that it used to be owned by a Canadian company called 'Oracle - The Assistance Group' until late 1998 when it was swallowed whole by Sykes Enterprises Inc. of, you guessed it, Tampa Florida.

Which means that like Accenture and Maximus before it, when push comes to shove, Clinidata is subject to the whims of the clampdown.....errrr.......the US Patriot Act.

But still, that's not so bad, right. Everything's going to be alright because, for sure, according to B.C. Health Minister Boy George Abbott:

"....the contractor will be required to operate in BC and employ BC Registered Nurses."

So rest assured, with this decision, the SS Gordon Campbell has made sure that nobody is going to try and outsource those nursing jobs to ensure that profit margins be met.

But then we read this, from the front page of the parent company's website:

"Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated ("SYKES" or the "Company") (Nasdaq:SYKE), a global leader in providing outsourced customer contact management solutions and services in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena....."


Hmmmm.......that's interesting, we thought, as we rubbed our chin before writing ever more complicated boolean script which generated stuff, a whole lotta stuff, like this:

"Sykes Enterprises has informed Florida officials that it will close its Marianna call center, and will lay off 145 of its Marianna employees Saturday and the remaining 121 on Oct. 2 (2004). The disclosure came just weeks after the Tampa company said it would shutter its only other Florida call center, located in Palatka. The announcement Tuesday brings to nine the number of U.S. call centers that Sykes plans to close in 2004. Only five other U.S. call centers will remain: Bismarck, N.D.; Wise, Va.; Morganfield, Ky.; Ponca City, Okla.; and Sterling, Colo. At one time, Sykes had nearly 20 call centers in the United States.

Total layoffs among the nine facilities to be closed this year is expected to exceed 2,500.....

(snip)

Like many of its competitors, the company is shutting down U.S. call centers and opening up new ones in offshore locales like the Philippines and India, where relatively low wages allow Sykes to meet client demands for reduced pricing."

Feel better now?

_____
Original Link Source: on the outsourcing from the 'Left Coaster'
Just in case you need another jolt in the spine: turns out that Mr. John Sykes the founder of Sykes Enterprises Inc. (ie. not the Infinity Broadcasting guy or the musician) likes to stay on the good side of the Cheney Administration. For example, in 2001 Mr. Sykes gave $100,000 to the Bush Cheney Inagural Committee.

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