JWT INSIDE HEALTH CARE NEWSLETTER

Week of August 30, 2010
*Massachusetts
Labor board restores hospital nurse retiree benefits
Cambridge Hospital nurses won a fight against the Cambridge Health Alliance when the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board ruled Friday that a unilateral cut in retiree health benefits was not warranted before completing collective bargaining with the Massachusetts Nurses Association unit, the Boston Herald reports. The decision resolved an issue that has been brewing since June, when the alliance chopped nurse retiree health benefits by 40 percent and raised their required contributions to half of the insurance premium price. The cuts were made after the nurses union rejected management's final offer to rework benefits, according to the Boston Globe. The alliance must reinstate benefits, as a result of Friday's employment board decision. It has 30 days to appeal the ruling. After the alliance offered to let nurses who agreed to retire by the end of August to maintain the full health benefit, which covers 90 percent of retirees' health care costs, 13 nurses opted to take the "forced retirement." The alliance told the Globe that cuts to employee retirement benefits are needed to keep the financially struggling hospital group afloat.  In the past two years the chain has made many cuts to services and resources. The cuts include 450 full-time positions, six of its 26 health centers, and phasing out 35 adult psychiatric beds. Without the retirement concessions, the Alliance had estimated it would have had to lay off 100 additional workers. Cambridge Health Alliance and union representatives next head back to the bargaining table to devise a retiree health benefits solution for more than 325 nurses at Cambridge Hospital. (Boston Globe, 08/31/10; Boston Herald, 08/31/10)

*Mississippi
Baptist Medical Center lays off 186
Baptist Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., laid off 186 people, or 5 percent of a total staff of more than 3,700, over the past week. The cuts were part of an initiative to cut overall spending by at least $16 million because reimbursements haven't kept pace with costs, the Clarion Ledger reports. Those who were laid off could apply for 136 job openings, he said. As of Tuesday, parent company Baptist Health Systems listed 108 open jobs on the hospital website. Many are for patient care associates and staff RNs. Workers who opt not to apply for other positions at the hospital will be offered help finding work elsewhere through an employee assistance program. (Clarion Ledger, 08/30/10)

*National
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Northwest Health Foundation announce new initiatives to build the 21st century nursing workforce
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the Northwest Health Foundation (NWHF) today announced nine new grants as part of Partners Investing in Nursing's Future (PIN), a unique national initiative to help find innovative ways to create an adequate nursing workforce appropriate in size and equipped with the specific skills necessary to meet the changing demands of the 21st century patient population. The program provides support to local and regional philanthropies to act as catalysts in their own communities and to develop strategies for creating and sustaining a viable nursing workforce.  This marks the fifth year of PIN funding. The program invested more than $12 million in local partnerships. The 2010 partners will focus on key areas of concern in building a nursing workforce, including education, capacity, recruitment and retention, and diversity, leveraging more than $9 million in local and regional funding. During the program's first four years, 88 foundation partners in 32 states and the island territories of the Western Pacific established over 300 local partnerships among nursing organizations, funders and workforce development boards to address the nursing and nurse faculty shortages. The new grantees will bring the total number of private philanthropic organizations contributing to the solutions to nearly 100 and expands the number of states represented to 37. (RWJF press release, 08/31/10)

*New York
Brooklyn nursing home laying off 500
The nonprofit Metropolitan Jewish Geriatric Center in Brooklyn is being sold for $60 million to Boro Park Operating Co. and the Boro Park Land Co., a for-profit which does business as the Boro Park Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare. The 354-bed nonprofit nursing home is located at 4915 10th Ave. in Brooklyn. On Tuesday, the nursing home informed the state Department of Labor that it will be laying off 506 employees when it completes the sale. The notice, a Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification, indicates the workers will be laid off by Dec. 1. (Crain’s New York Business, 09/02/10)

RECENTLY PUBLISHED
Med students open to learning via new media
Having been raised in an age of ubiquitous technology, medical students are game to using new media and virtual reality as part of their education, according to a new survey. Ninety percent of the 217 participants in the study -- medical students at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the University of Michigan Medical School -- said they would be inclined to use new media technologies if they helped to develop skills in patient interactions. Meanwhile, 98% said they think education should make better use of new media, according to the study, published online June 24 in BioMed Central. The study defined new media as computer and video games, virtual-reality environments, social networks, websites, mobile devices, blogs and podcasts. And 80% said video games can have educational value -- even though only about half of the students classified themselves as video game players.  (American Medical News, 08/30/10)

RECENT LAYOFFS
Metropolitan Jewish Geriatric Center, Brooklyn NY (500)
Baptist Medical Center, Jackson MS (186)
Deaconess Hospital, Cincinnati OH (60)
Memorial Hospital, Gulfport MS (47)

 

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