SUPER HEROES AMONG US
PROJECT SUPERHERO : BILL HAYDEN , BSBA , BSN AUTHOR Mary Barry , MD
It was an Army romance . Bill grew up in Fern Creek , the youngest of seven , getting away with everything and always wanting to join the Army . After St . X he did , completing basic training and a tour at Garmisch Partenkirchen and loving it . But back home to start college , some car crashed into his car , and broke his neck . His entire family held their breath while Dr . Peter Kirsch at Audubon fixed the C3-C4 fracture . When they exhaled , Bill could still walk . But he could no longer qualify for the intense active-duty physical training . He also got turned down for the police force ; he thinks they figured out he might have been a little “ faster to confront ” than desired ( when you are the youngest , you learn defense early ). So he enrolled at UofL in the Army ROTC program instead . Pushups , he could do .
There in Crawford Gym , at the intramural ROTC volleyball game , he met the woman who would change his life , Dedra Malone . Then an Army ROTC sophomore in nursing , she ’ s been Dedra M . Hayden now for decades . After only six months of dating , they decided to get a joint checking account together , and after three years tied the knot . Dedra moved over to Jefferson Community College and ended up taking out loans for her Associate Degree in Nursing , deciding that staying together with Bill - instead of being deployed all over the world as an Army officer - outranked any scholarship . Bill worked on his business degree , and in 1989 , before
his senior year , he saw an ad for one “ Management Engineering Summer Intern .” This turned out to be a posting from Methodist Evangelical Hospital .
He went to the interview and asked them why they were not hunting for someone from the Speed School . Still , he got the spot and at summer ’ s end , his boss explained that she never kept any intern more than a semester ; he ’ d have to go . But first , he could help her interview the next crew . He did , and when he reported back , she turned her nose up at all of them , and so he stayed .
He was then told to figure out how to value and then standardize hospital charges . He had no idea how to do that . But he ’ d taken business administration courses , so he talked to every section head and charge nurse and aide and any veteran functionary he could find . He asked each one , “ How hard is it to provide this service ? How long does it take ? How involved is it ? What skill levels are required ? What all materials do you use ? How expensive are the materials ? What ’ s the wastage ?” and on and on , tailoring the questions to the service . He then wrote his own code , so to speak , inventing a spreadsheet with all sorts of finely categorized data . He was still a senior student , he loved learning finance , and he simply made it up as he went along . Thus our old Methodist , soon morphing into the Alliant Health System , got its first long , long list of what the hospital would charge for every single thing . He stayed about three years , while getting progressively jealous of the people who actually made you better , instead of making the bottom line better .
( continued on page 10 ) DECEMBER 2021 9