Over 100 employees are being laid off by one of the biggest medical systems in the region.
116 workers at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Virtual Health Services will lose their jobs beginning in July, per a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).
Chad Melton, the interim president of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health’s Puget Sound Market, said in a statement that the changes will affect about 200 employees.
“We are realigning resources and improving operational efficiency to protect access to care in the long term,” Melton stated. This entails moving a number of administrative and virtual services.
Additionally, the statement stated, in part:
“Like health care systems across the country, we are facing significant financial pressures — including rising labor and supply costs, increasing claim denials and chronic underpayment from government programs. These challenges have only intensified in Washington state, where a new budget introduces new taxes that directly affect hospitals and reduces reimbursement, most notably by capping payments for care provided to state and school employees. These changes are expected to cost VMFH an additional $30 million each year”
Megan Frasier, who is currently employed as a Cardiac Monitor Tech, commented, “Found out yesterday morning, a lot of my coworkers and I are still processing it, we are devastated obviously.”
Inside the Franciscan Health Education and Support building in Tacoma, Frasier works alongside her group of telemetry technicians. Vital information about patients is monitored remotely.
Frasier works inside the Franciscan Health Education and Support building in Tacoma with her group of telemetry technicians. They keep an eye on patients’ vitals remotely.
“We are responsible for watching the heart rhythms of our patients at the local regional hospitals. We watch for cardiac related incidents and some things that may impact our patients’ overall health and safety,” she stated. “I love that I get to help people in a way that suits my personality type.”
Frasier was informed that their work would be outsourced to a different area.
“I get my morning coffee at the coffee stand across the street from one of the hospitals that I watch, so I don’t know how outsourcing that to a totally different region where it’s, you know, less familiar territory is helpful,” she stated.
According to Frasier, who is a member of the UFCW 3000 union, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health informed them last week that they would be terminating all of the union’s telemetry technicians—employees who remotely monitor patients’ vital signs to make sure they are stable and secure.
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In a statement, a union representative stated, among other things:
“These layoffs impact more than 50 union workers, creating a tremendous amount of uncertainty for us, other healthcare workers in the region, and the patients who rely on the services we provide.”
In addition to addressing the “sudden financial insecurity” brought on by this layoff, the spokesman stated that they intend to help affected employees find new union responsibilities within the employer’s healthcare system by addressing these changes at the bargaining table.
According to Frasier, she and her group were informed that they would be laid off between November and February.
“We’re still here, we’re still going to provide the best patient care that we can, obviously. But there’s definitely concern going forward, of what that looks like and who is going to actually watch all of our community and our patients,” she stated.
Hospital layoffs will continue throughout the state, according to industry executives.
According to Sauer, hospitals are having financial difficulties as a result of potential federal budget cuts, state funding cuts, and taxes that her association fought against.
