Briefing: UMass Memorial Cuts

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Administrators at UMass Memorial Health Care (UMMHC) continued their quest to operate in the black with yet another round of layoffs announced this month in Worcester, as well as at Leominster-based HealthAlliance Hospital.

What are the latest numbers?

Job losses at the region's largest employer are mounting, with 388 full-time-equivalent positions that have been eliminated or will be by June at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Meanwhile, HealthAlliance has cut 10.5 full-time-equivalent positions at its Leominster and Fitchburg campuses, while Marlborough Hospital eliminated 10 positions in January and reduced hours for 31 more.

How else is UMass Memorial scaling back?

But the latest round of job cuts was also accompanied by service reductions that could have more significant implications on the region's population that UMMHC serves. Those include: closing three of 17 operating rooms and an entire hospital unit; reducing the number of beds at the Children's Medical Center; a planned sale of a hospital building on Shattuck Street; elimination of IV therapy operations and consolidation of infusion services.

On his blog, Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMMHC, discussed the need to shrink the medical center's physical footprint in Worcester and reorganize the space for efficiency. He called the hospital “at the center of our financial recovery plan.”

“For years the medical center has tried to be all things to all people regardless of the cost. As much as we would like to continue being the one source for all health care needs, we need to face the realities of today's health care landscape and re-evaluate what it means to provide the right care at the right time and at the right place,” Dickson wrote. That includes, in some cases, redirecting patients with less urgent medical needs to community hospitals.

What else lies ahead?

UMMHC hasn't discussed additional cost-cutting plans, but with a goal to eliminate the system's operating loss in fiscal 2015, which begins Oct. 1, it's unlikely the recently announced reductions are the final solution.

In a memo to UMMMC employees from CEO Patrick Muldoon on April 16, he called the latest cuts a continuation of the first phase of the system's plan to reverse operating losses, which he said will continue in the coming weeks and months. Muldoon also said the first phase will lay the foundation for a second phase: revamping operations to make the hospital more “effective, efficient, and affordable” for patients. n