Abington Health laying off 95 workers

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Philadelphia Business Journal

Jun 5, 2014

Abington Health laying off 95 workers

Abington Health is laying off 95 workers and reducing hours for others, as it struggles to cope with declining inpatient-care volumes and decreasing reimbursement rates from health insurers.

The Montgomery County health system is the parent company for Abington Memorial Hospital and Lansdale Hospital, as well as a network of outpatient centers. It's cutting 80 full-time jobs and 15 part-time jobs before July 1.

Abington Health has approximately 6,000 employees....

...As individuals leave the organization, whenever possible, we make every effort to eliminate positions by attrition. In preparation for fiscal year 2015 and in response to shifting volume, we are trimming overall work hours in some departments; in others we are reducing staff hours from 80 to 75 or 72 per pay period. While we have looked at every way to reduce hours, layoffs are unfortunately unavoidable....

...Abington Health's job cuts are the latest in a string of layoffs at area hospitals and health systems. Earlier this year Crozer-Keystone Health System, Delaware County's largest health-care provider, laid off about 250 workers because of mounting financial losses. More recently, Mercy Health System eliminated 35 positions and Lourdes Health System cuts 23 jobs, both as part of service realignments and adjustments to cope with drops in admissions and lower payment rates.

Over the past year, Pennsylvania hospitals had eliminated 3,900 jobs in response to Medicare payment reductions, changes from health-care reform and a "generally sluggish economy," according to a recent study from the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania....

Those considering a nursing career in PA need to understand that hospital positions are extremely difficult to obtain, even with a BSN. I expect more layoffs to occur in Southeast PA area.

[WookieeRN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Our neighbor works in the ER @ Abington and was talking to us about this. It stinks and is a very scary emerging pattern.