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Medical Center trims budget, 1,100 jobs to go

The University Medical Center announced plans April 26 to trim 1,100 jobs from a 8,297-person workforce in the next fiscal year. The layoffs are part of the hospital's plan to become more efficient and competitive with other medical centers.

An additional 1,000 jobs will be cut in the following two years under a three-year plan to save a total of $200 million.

Michael Harrison, a spokesperson for the hospital, said the cuts are due to the pressures of managed-care companies, which force hospitals to become more cost-efficient and competitive.

"We have to bring the cost of (each patient's) case in line with other institutions," Harrison said.

The cost-per-patient case at the center is about $8,600 - which is $2,000 more than the cost-per-case at comparable institutions. Procedures done at University Hospitals can cost half that elsewhere, Harrison said.

Harrison attributed the high costs to extra duties an academic center has in addition to providing health care.

"The costs incurred by an academic center are much higher than other institutions," he said. "We have to fund the teaching and research missions."

Harrison also said the University Hospitals often receive the sickest patients who require expensive treatments.

Of the 1,100 employees expected to be laid off, 200 will be from the nursing staff, the most of any staff.

Nursing senior Nicole Bills was forced to find a job elsewhere, after learning that she no longer had a job with the University hospital this summer.

"A lot of people were angry because we thought we had a job for this summer," she said.

Harrison said more than half of the job losses will be through attrition. Eighty-one employees have accepted early retirement or transferred to jobs elsewhere in the University.

Although Harrison said the layoffs are necessary, hospital employees disagreed and many are feeling insecure about their future.

"Everybody is stressed about it," said Ellen Zanecki, a physician in the Obstetrics and Gynecology department. "(They wonder) who's going to be the first one to go."

Each department has been ordered to meet a target reduction, determined by baseline comparisons with peer institutions.

The departments most directly affected by the layoffs include nursing and dietetics. The dietetic department will face a 33 percent reduction in its staff.

The downsizing of workforce and other cost-cutting measures such as reducing patient stays and limiting the number of beds, will not affect the quality of health care, Harrison said.

"We will never be taking such a drastic step that the quality of care will suffer," he said. "Our goal is finding better, more efficient way to deliver care on a smaller scale."

He said remaining positions will be adjusted to incorporate different, more wide-ranging tasks.

Across the country, other medical centers are making similar cutbacks.

Dorothy Zacharski, instrument manager of the University's hospital operating room, said the medical center in San Francisco adjusted to its cutbacks successfully.

Still she said, "Everyone that's left will work so hard. You can only stretch good health care so far."

University electromyography technicians Kathy Ryan and Sue Nalepa agree that patient care and also teaching will be affected by an overburdened staff.

"We have less time to teach our residents," Ryan said.

Although she agreed that cost-effectiveness is important, Ryan said that more layoffs should be made in the administrative staff than the technical staff.

"The people that they're cutting (are employees) they should not be cutting," she said. "They should cut less on the technical staff (because they perform) jobs that are hands-on."