Thursday, November 06, 2014

Patients Will Have Uninterrupted Access to Their Doctors; Specialty and Outpatient Services will Remain in Quincy

Steward Working Closely with Massachusetts Nurses Association and 1199SEIU to Identify and Match Employees to Jobs in Steward Health Care System

BOSTON, MA, November 6, 2014 – Steward Health Care System LLC announced today that at the end of the year it will transition care at Quincy Medical Center (QMC) to a more sustainable outpatient health care delivery network in Quincy. The new outpatient delivery system will include: a new 24-hour Emergency Department; a separately sited state-of-the-art urgent care center; multi-specialty clinic in Quincy; radiological services, including X-ray, mammography, CT, and ultrasound; as well as a multi-point transportation plan. The plan will maintain primary care and specialist physician offices in Quincy to ensure patients continue to have access to their own doctors. For inpatient services, patients continue to have access to 15 hospitals within 10 miles of QMC, including a Steward hospital that is approximately four miles away. As part of the transition in care delivery, Steward will be providing transportation that links Manet Community Health Center locations, medical offices at 700 Congress Street and 54 Miller Street in Quincy, Compass Medical in Quincy, Carney Hospital, and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center.

“While Quincy Medical Center earns top quality and safety ratings, competition from Boston-area medical centers, significant cuts to Medicare reimbursements, continued Medicaid under funding, continued rate disparity, and precipitously declining inpatient volume have made QMC unsustainable. On an average day, only one-fifth of all beds are occupied and it has become abundantly clear that local residents no longer seek inpatient services from Quincy Medical Center,” explained Mark Girard, MD, president of Steward Hospitals. “While Quincy Medical Center will no longer operate, we are one hundred percent committed to delivering convenient access to health care in Quincy, with a new 24-7 emergency department, separate sited urgent care, and the ability for patients to continue seeing their personal doctors.”

During the past twenty years, QMC has faced serious financial hardships leading to city and state bailouts of more than $100 million and ultimately federal bankruptcy. Since 2011, Steward has invested an additional $100 million in the hospital, but it has operating losses of nearly $20 million a year because the overwhelming majority of patients, especially commercial patients, leave Quincy for inpatient care and those who do use QMC use the hospital primarily for outpatient services.

Within 10 miles of the Quincy Medical Center campus are 15 acute care hospitals, 12 surgery centers, 21 urgent care centers, more than 150 nursing home providers, more than 500 physician offices and 130 outpatient behavioral health sites.

In Massachusetts and elsewhere in the United States, care is migrating from inpatient hospitalization to more convenient, cost-effective outpatient settings. In the Quincy area, patients have access to a wide variety of health care providers. In the Boston metro area, data shows that an increasing number of patients are migrating from community hospitals to academic medical centers in Boston for a wide range of routine care. That is also true in Quincy. In the past year, only 16 percent of Quincy area residents are seeking inpatient hospital care in Quincy.

The vast majority of patients who use the QMC Emergency Department (ED) have non-urgent health care needs. All trauma, burn and cardiac patients are already diverted to other hospitals. According to patient data from the last year, nearly 80 percent of all QMC patients who visited the ED were treated and sent home on the same day. Approximately 50 percent of the remaining patients are transferred to behavioral health units, a service that will remain unchanged. To meet the community needs, Steward will be opening both a free standing emergency room (pending DPH approval) and an urgent care center in two distinct locations. These will be strategically placed to optimize patient access and convenience.

In the past year, Steward has been in close contact with state regulators, officials, health care experts and labor leaders about the dire financial situation facing QMC. At the beginning of October, hospital officials convened a task force of local and state officials, labor leaders, and health care experts to analyze the situation and help determine a sustainable path forward. The task force has been meeting weekly and has provided valuable insights and recommendations during these discussions.

“After reviewing the data, I believe there is no other option than to close Quincy Medical Center as it exists. Steward is doing the right thing by transitioning the healthcare services that local patients need and use to more accessible outpatient settings and making it as convenient as possible for patients,” said Richard Bane, president of BaneCare.

“We believe that our patients will be better served by our new network of services in Quincy,“ continued Girard. “At the same time, we are taking great care to ensure that our Quincy Medical Center employees receive an unprecedented level of support and opportunities during this transition. We are going above and beyond what other hospitals have done in similar circumstances.”

All QMC employees will continue to be paid for the next 60 days and each will be offered comprehensive support services. Steward has created a QMC Employee Transition Support Team made up of Steward HR advisors, outplacement career consultants and employee assistance counselors. There are currently job matches and opportunities in the Steward system for a significant majority of employees at QMC. Steward will be working closely with MNA, 1199SEIU and all other QMC employees to help them secure new jobs.

“Labor has and will continue to have a seat at the table. We will continue to work closely with labor to transition our employees to other positions in the Steward system or to provide training to facilitate better opportunities,” said Girard.

QMC will continue to be open and operating between now and December 31, 2014. All patients will be contacted directly by their physician about transitioning their health care to new locations after QMC closes.

About Steward Health Care
Steward Health Care is the largest fully integrated community care organization and community hospital network in New England. Headquartered in Boston, Steward is the third largest employer in MA with more than 17,000 employees in more than 150 communities. Steward is comprised of Steward Medical Group, Steward Health Care Network, and Steward Hospital Group. Steward Medical Group provides approximately 1 million patient encounters per year in 152 sites and manages home care and hospice with 300,000 and 35,000 encounters respectively. Steward Health Care Network, a fully integrated care management company, has 2,800 physicians, with approximately 4 million patient encounters per year and affiliates or joint ventures with 22 UrgiCenters. Steward’s Hospital Group includes Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Norwood Hospital, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, Holy Family-Haverhill Campus, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Quincy Medical Center and New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton. Other Steward Health Care entities include Steward Medical Group and Steward Home Care. Further information is available at www.steward.org.