Banner Health to lay off 145 from Valley hospitals

[Kabin]

Heard this on the radio yesterday. The radio report said it would be mostly admin personel.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0621banner21.html

Banner Health set to lay off 145 people from Valley hospitals

Jodie Snyder

The Arizona Republic

Jun. 21, 2005 12:00 AM

One of the state's largest employers, Banner Health, will lay off 145 people today in part because fewer people than expected are going to its new West Valley hospital.

Banner opened Banner Estrella Medical Center at 9201 W. Thomas Road in January. It has two other major projects under way and says it will use lessons learned about growth related to Estrella as it opens other hospitals.

Currently, Banner's Arizona division has a $6.6 million gap between actual and projected net revenue. If no action is taken, that gap could widen to $11 million, said Peter Fine, Banner's chief executive officer. advertisement

The gap represents a sliver of Banner's $2 billion budget, but officials say they want to head off any problems.

"We are trying to jump on it early," Fine said.

Fine stressed the shortfall is only being seen in operations in Arizona, one of seven Western states where Banner has hospitals.

Banner has about 17,000 employees in Arizona. The layoffs will happen throughout its eight hospitals in the Valley but will be "significant" at Estrella, where patient volumes are off, Fine said.

Full Story: http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0621banner21.html

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or [phone].

[PhoenixGirl]

whoa that's surprising! I bet as it grows more on the west side the hospital will do better. It seems like everyday I see a new field becoming a new homes or shopping. What gives? Is west valley hospital taking all the patients? That seems hard to beleive since they are small and have a bad rep, but who knows.

[Kabin]

I'm wondering the same thing; all these new homes and that awesome hospital isn't pulling in enough non-trauma patients yet. The report makes it sound like doctors are beginning new practices which take time to grow. That makes sense. I'd guess existing docs would be locked into some type of contracts with their existing hopsitals so they couldn't quickly move their practice. With all the business savy minds one would think there would be a successful way to open a hospital.

[esrun3]

My daughter works for Banner and from what she is hearing the new hospital isn't pulling in enough ER patients, plus they have a lot of new docs out there. In fact, they just closed down their cardiac cath lab becuase they weren't busy enough. I hear they are laying-off, and not offering other positions to those they lay-off, haven't hit the floor nurses yet, don't see how they could, they just about always work short handed. One of the reasons I left there.

[CrazyPremed, MSN, RN, NP]

I work for Banner Health as a phlebotomist. The majority of the layoffs were administrative personnel, but some of the technical positions have been 'frozen'. I think that that a mistake was made by a company that is trying to monopolize the health care field in an area. So much is owned by Banner Health, though, that I don't see a problem in the long run.

CrazyPremed