The CHI St. Vincent hospitals in Arkansas will reduce their workforce by 157 jobs as a result of the system created by the acquisition of Mercy Hospital in Hot Springs to go along with St. Vincent hospitals in Little Rock, Sherwood and Morrilton.

Hospital layoffs have been happening around the country. They’ve been blamed on drops in insurance reimbursements from both government and private programs and — in some other states — failure to take advantage of Medicaid expansion. A contraction in the economy the first quarter of this year has been blamed on a drop in health care spending.

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On the jump is the St. Vincent news release on the layoffs. It says, in part, that people will be lose jobs because:

As part of the integration process, an intense review of all CHI St. Vincent ministries has been underway to address bringing together two historically separate organizations by consolidating several key corporate functions, maintaining a lean leadership structure, and ensuring consistent and equitable operations across the health system.

I’m awaiting an answer for a question about a passage in the release that mentions reducing 157 positions in the total workforce that also said “there will be no more than 91 impacted individuals.”(It apparently means not all of the 157 jobs are currently filled. Most of the losses are in Hot Springs.)

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NEWS RELEASE

The change of membership of the Hot Springs health ministry on April 1, 2014 to CHI St. Vincent created a new, strong, vibrant, Catholic integrated system of hospitals, physician clinics, outpatient services, and an accountable care organization (the Arkansas Health Network) in central and southwest Arkansas. To accelerate the integration process, the Board and leadership of CHI St. Vincent embarked on a journey to transform every aspect of the ministry from how the boards operate to how leadership is structured to how the system improves the quality, experience, and safety of patient care.

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As part of the integration process, an intense review of all CHI St. Vincent ministries has been underway to address bringing together two historically separate organizations by consolidating several key corporate functions, maintaining a lean leadership structure, and ensuring consistent and equitable operations across the health system. As a result of this review, CHI St. Vincent will be reducing 157 positions in a total workforce of more than 4,500. From the positions impacted, there will be no more than 91 impacted individuals at CHI St. Vincent.

“Today is a very difficult day for our ministry and our first task is to support those co-workers that are leaving us because our decisions are impacting good people and their families,” said Peter D. Banko, President & CEO of CHI St. Vincent. “Our second task is to continue to stay focused on our basic philosophy that has served us well for 126 years – the patient comes first!”

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In this work and all our work, we are guided by our mission and core values – reverence, integrity, compassion, and excellence – in our decision-making and how our decisions would impact our co-workers. We sought to minimize the impact on direct patient care. Every attempt was made to also minimize the actual number of impacted co-workers by evaluating job openings, utilizing normal turnover, and shifting co-workers to different areas. Where possible, we did attempt to address those co-workers not meeting performance expectations.
Impacted co-workers at CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs will follow Mercy’s severance policy per our agreement with Mercy in the transfer of membership to CHI St. Vincent. Impacted co-workers at all other locations will follow CHI St. Vincent’s standard severance policy.

“While today is a tough day, I have never been more optimistic about the great future that lies ahead for CHI St. Vincent”, concluded Banko. “Our coming together enhances Catholic health care ministry in Arkansas. And we have firmly positioned ourselves to be one of the two (or three) prominent health systems that chart a new course for health care in Arkansas.”

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CHI St. Vincent, founded in 1888, is one of Arkansas’ leading health systems. CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, an acute care facility, licensed for 615 beds, is located in Little Rock. CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs is an acute care facility licensed for 282 beds providing an emergency department with a Level 2 Trauma Center designation. Other CHI St. Vincent campuses include CHI St. Vincent North, licensed for 69 beds, in Sherwood; CHI St. Vincent Morrilton, a critical access hospital in Morrilton, licensed for 25 beds; and CHI St. Vincent West; an outpatient campus in west Little Rock. The system also includes a network of 250 primary care and specialty physicians, an accountable care organization (Arkansas Health Network), a home health agency, a joint venture inpatient rehabilitation facility, and affiliations with more than 1,000 physicians. CHI St. Vincent is sponsored by Catholic Health Initiatives, one of the nation’s largest health systems, with 120 locations and over 3,000 integrated physicians across 18 states. For more information visit our website at www.chistvincent.com.

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