I wanted to give you all an update about what’s been going on my life for the past seven months and at the same time tout the benefits of Barack Obama’s stimulus plan which is so often reviled by the GOP and their mob (aka the Tea Party). As many of you know in the last half of 2010 my free lance IT business went into the toilet. Long standing clients of mine were closing their doors due to the economic downturn and finding replacements was proving impossible. Faced with the prospect of losing my home I decided to look for a job, sadly I was unable to find a job in time to save my home but luckily was able to find (with the help of friends) more modest digs and avoided becoming homeless.
As you can well imagine, being 52 and having long been out of the job market the prospect of looking for a job was quite terrifying. Months slipped by, I sent out countless resumes, and went to more than a few interviews, no one was offering me a job. Then I came across an ad on Craigslist “Your Big Break into IT Healthcare” that had been posted by Mt. Sinai Medical Center here NYC. Having no idea what the job was I replied to the ad and received an email back telling me to show up that Marriot Marquee on a certain date to be interviewed. 1,200 people showed up for the interview, Sinai was looking to hire 103 people. Luckily I was one of the 1,200 hired and on Jan. 3rd I went to work at Sinai. Here was the deal, Sinai was going to pay us crap but they would get us credentialed as Epic trainers (Epic is the leading electronic medical records software, they control approx. 40% of the market). After starting my new job I quickly learned that the reason the hospital was switching to an all electronic charting system is because under the president’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 hospitals will reap huge financial rewards for becoming with compliant with the “Meaningful Use” aspects of the law, hospitals who are not compliant after 2014 will have Medicare funds withheld.
Tomorrow is my last day at Sinai, I was originally contracted to work till May 28th but have been repeatedly extended, in fact I am the last member of the team still at the hospital. On the 21st of this month I will be going up to Rochester, NY to start working at Rochester General Hospital for a 9 – 12 month contract with a strong likely hood for permanent employment for more money that I could have ever imagined earning! Not only will I be making more money than I ever have in my life, I love the work I am doing, all in all a pretty damn good deal! So the next time someone tells you the stimulus plan is working tell em “bullshit” it is working, the problem is it isn’t going far enough.
Brian, congratulations and best of luck! As someone who was helped by the government when I was down, I can second what you say…