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Memorial Health System cuts 15 jobs

CEO Scott Cantley says move is a part of staffing realignment

MARIETTA — Rumors that more than 100 jobs have been eliminated in the Memorial Health System in Marietta are a vastly exaggerated version of the actual situation, the health system CEO said Wednesday.

Scott Cantley said a staffing realignment that affected about 100 of the system’s employees has resulted in a net loss of about 15 jobs, with the others reassigned within the system.

The Memorial Health System operates hospitals and several clinics in Marietta and Belpre, and it employs about 3,000 people.

The workforce reduction came about in part as the result of the system drawing back from a federal program intended to reduce Medicare costs, Cantley said.

“It started in January 2016,” he said. “We put a registered nurse care manager in every primary care office, part of a program called patient-centered medical home. Now, with a change in (federal government) administration two years later, we’re not satisfied that the government will go forward with it, and we’re stepping back from that.”

Cantley said the program is based on coordinating patient care through primary care physicians. The program was intended as a cost-saving delivery system for Medicare, he said, with Memorial standing to receive part of the savings, but the gains it realized did not meet expectations.

The change affected about 20 RNs, he said, who were offered other jobs.

Another 40 nurses were affected as the result of efficiency measures in clinics, he said.

“We have about 350 physicians and advanced level practitioners, such as physicians assistants, many of whom came to Memorial with their own practices and brought in their own clinical coordinators,” he said. For practices in locations such as the main hospital, Wayne medical campus and the Belpre campus, he said, “We asked ourselves, does it make sense for all of them to have individual clinical coordinators?”

That reorganization eliminated 25 jobs, he said, and the people affected were offered other positions.

Ultimately, after those affected — more than 100, he said — were done being moved around, about 15 were left for whom no position could be found in the system.

“Of the 100 conversations we had, 15 didn’t have an opportunity to stay. All of the other conversations have the opportunity to stay, so we’re still vetting out the total that will stay,” said Jennifer Offenberger, Memorial’s vice president of marketing and service excellence.

“Most of them are staying with us,” Cantley said. “It’s mostly just putting people in the places they belong.”

Offenberger said seniority was one factor in reorganization, but the complexity of the process forced the administration to look at positions, not necessarily individuals.

Offenberger said the financial impact of the moves won’t be clear for some time.

“We are unable to provide that information until the final decisions of each employee and the impact that has on the (traveling nurse contractors) and vacancies we are able to fill,” she said.

Two physician positions were eliminated, Cantley said, as the result of evaluating an experimental staffing model for emergency rooms.

The model placed two surgeons in rotating on-call duty for emergency rooms in an attempt to make emergency calls less disruptive for the schedules of other surgeons. The two surgeons were solely dedicated to emergency calls, he said, and had no clinical practices.

“It was an experiment, it was expensive, and we ended that,” Cantley said.

The system still employs traveling nurses — nurses contracted through an agency that come in for temporary work, usually 13-week stints — Cantley said, calling it a necessary but expensive aspect of staffing. The system needs to pay for the travelers’ relocation and accommodation while they are employed in Marietta, he said.

Offenberger said travelers are used in functions that can’t be filled by local recruiting.

“We bring these experienced staff in to allow us to continue to provide a high level of care to our community when we are unable to fill these positions,” she said.

Holly West is a traveler living in Florida. She worked at Memorial for several years before signing up with a traveling nurse agency, she said, and in the past week has received calls from the agency inviting her to apply for Marietta positions

“They said they saw that I had worked at Memorial and told me they just got a contract to bring in 20 to 30 traveling nurses,” she said.

The staffing adjustments in all affected less than 1 percent of the workforce, Cantley said, and are part of the system’s continuing strategy to remain efficient. He noted that in past years the system’s staffing numbers have seen steady growth.

“We’re constantly reassessing our dollars to deliver the best quality and most cost efficient care,” he said.

Offenberger said the process of realignment began Friday and ended Wednesday morning.

“We’re done,” she said.

The Memorial Health System is a not-for-profit organization and not required to disclose information under freedom of information laws. Because it is tax-exempt, however, Memorial is required to file a publicly available 990 form with the IRS.

The most recent 990 available, for the 2015 taxation year, stated the system had $429,457,554 in total revenue and $415,827,311 in expenses, which included $211,816,837 in compensation and benefits, for a margin of $13,630,243 in revenue over expenses, an increase of approximately 6 percent over the previous year.

The form 990 also lists executive compensation in approximate terms as of 2015. CEO Scott Cantley is listed as receiving about $885,000; medical staff president Dr. Dan Breece about $770,000 (through a related organization); Dr. John Lee, a board member, $512,000 (through a related organization); Eric Young, CFO, $482,000; Deeann Gehlauf, senior vice president of business, $376,000; Kevin Malcomb, vice president, post acute, $303,000; Joan Washburn, vice-president, clinical, $375,000; Paul Westbrock, vice-president, legal, $421,000; Page Smith, vice-president, nursing, $229,000.

Total executive compensation listed on the form, including amounts from “related organizations,” came to about $4.77 million, slightly more than 1 percent of Memorial’s total revenue for the year and 2.2 percent of the total compensation declared.

The system went through staffing reorganization in May 2013, but at that time the administration said its goals could be achieved through attrition rather than layoffs or terminations.

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