COLUMBIA MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ANNOUNCES
RESTRUCTURING PLANS
Staff Reductions, Program Modifications Will Help Reduce Costs,
Improve Overall Patient Care
(Hudson, NY – August 29, 2006) – In recent years, Columbia Memorial has been one of a minority of hospitals in New York to operate profitably; however, this year the hospital has experienced financial losses due to stagnating health insurance reimbursement rates as well as changing patient care needs. As a result, the Board of Trustees has unanimously endorsed a restructuring proposal which calls for reducing annual operating expenses by $2.5 million while also improving overall patient care. Implementation of the restructuring will begin immediately. Severance packages and other forms of assistance will be made available to affected employees.
The restructuring plan calls for the closure of one nursing unit. However, nurses who had served on that unit will not be without a position. Instead, they will have the opportunity to select from open positions currently available. That selection process will take place in accordance with the union contract.
Registered Nurses (RN) in outpatient care areas will be replaced with Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN) and Medical Office Technicians. This will encourage available RNs to work on the inpatient care units where they are needed, thereby helping to eliminate mandated overtime on the part of hospital nursing staff. Replacing them with LPNs or Medical Office Techs will save money while placing RNs where they will be of the most benefit to patients.
“The end result will be that part-time nurses who have had to work extra hours and full-time nurses who have had to work overtime will no longer have to do so,” explained Jane Ehrlich, President and CEO of Columbia Memorial Hospital. “This change will result in significant cost savings.”
Some of the changes expected to enhance overall patient care include an “express admission service” where an admissions nurse will begin the check-in process immediately. This will result in patients being moved to a comfortable patient care environment promptly rather than waiting in the Emergency Department until an inpatient bed is available.
At the same time, nurse managers will spend more time with patients during their stay in order to better assure patient satisfaction and address patient concerns. They will also help arrange for hospital discharges and attend to data collection and documentation needs. These responsibilities had previously been within the purview of every RN and required a significant amount of time away from the patient bedside.
Columbia Memorial recently established an outpatient imaging center which uses digitized records to enable physicians to send patient imaging studies to other physicians anywhere in the world at the patient’s request. Locating this service in the new medical office building, owned and operated by Landmark Healthcare Facilities Inc., results in significant efficiencies for the hospital and easy access for patients, who will no longer be impacted by emergencies.
“Today, patient care is shifting to the outpatient environment, which results in decreased reimbursement from insurance companies and at the same time requires a significant investment in technology,” explained Jane Ehrlich, president and CEO of Columbia Memorial Hospital. “The state-of-the-art equipment is necessary to carry out the less invasive procedures which can be done on an outpatient basis.”
As part of the restructuring, numerous management positions will be eliminated or consolidated and management salaries will be frozen. Some clerical positions in non-patient care areas will be eliminated as well.
Other restructuring initiatives that do not directly involve personnel include modifications to the management of the organization’s food services. In addition, Columbia Memorial is changing the Group Purchasing Organization to which it belongs, consolidating some primary care services, and implementing a centralized medical transcription service, all of which will result in additional cost savings.
Columbia Memorial Hospital serves more than 100,000 residents in Columbia, Greene and Northern Duchess counties. The hospital provides a full range of acute inpatient services, provides treatment for more than 32,000 emergency care patients annually, and provides over $5.8 million in free care annually. It also operates a 120-bed long-term care site as well as numerous outlying primary care centers and outpatient specialties centers.
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