by Kristina Gabalski
Lakeside Health System Interim CEO/CFO Hugh Collins has released a financial turnaround plan to “get back on solid ground financially to ensure that we are here for our community for years to come,” he said.
Multiple strategies are being implemented to increase revenue and cut expenses including $3 million from operating expenses, Collins said.
“To ensure the viability of Lakeside as a community resource, it is necessary to restructure operations, improve efficiency and become more cost effective,” he explains.
Collins calls the changes – which include staff reductions that could mean the loss of up to 50 full-time equivalent positions – “prudent, proactive steps to sustainable fiscal performance.”
Collins says the staff cuts will come mainly through normal attrition, a hiring freeze, retirement incentives and reduction in force. He calls the loss of 50 positions “a worse-case scenario. We hope it will be less.”
The staff cuts will be made throughout the organization, but every effort is being made to “sustain the current level of high quality and service and minimize any impact on positions that deal with direct patient care and service areas,” Collins says.
Other cost-cutting measures include exploring group purchasing options to reduce the cost of materials and supplies. Lakeside is also beginning the process of transferring operations of LeRoy Urgent Care to United Memorial Medical Center
(UMMC – Batavia). Collins calls the transfer a “win-win where the services will still be provided and Lakeside can reduce our expenses. Pending state approval, most of the Lakeside staff working at the LeRoy center will either be hired by UMMC or be transferred to Lakeside’s urgent care center in Spencerport.”
The hiring freeze is already in place and the work hour week has been reduced, Collins said. He said he has a short timeline for implementing the changes: “During the month of April, everything will happen.”
Strategies to increase revenue include outsourcing billing collections to an agency that would employ Lakeside staff to ensure best practices; working with physicians to admit more patients to Lakeside; and further developing Lakeside’s relationship with the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) to increase breadth of services and drive more admissions and referrals.
“Lakeside has a proud tradition, and is an integral part of the Brockport community. We have a huge advantage in the fact that we are already a high quality hospital,” Collins explains. “We want the community to understand (we will work to) maintain and improve quality and services. We are on a journey to become a low-cost efficient provider of inpatient and outpatient services while maintaining a high standard of quality of service to our patients, physicians and our community.”
Collins notes that Lakeside just completed its re-accreditation and members of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations who visited the facility were impressed.
“We received glowing remarks for our exemplary quality,” he said.
Lakeside is at the top of NYS Department of Health rankings on overall care for heart attack patients, overall pneumonia care and overall surgical care throughout a multi-county region, Collins says.
The facility also meets or exceeds national standards for surgical care infection prevention measures, he adds.
Collins emphasizes that while the health system is taking measures to reduce expenses, they also have a plan for growth and expanding services.
“We are adding services and will work with the University of Rochester Medical Center on a growth strategy,” he says.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to the hospital and to the community,” Collins says. “We are taking proactive measures to make sure the organization is here in the long-term.”
