Orlando Regional Healthcare, the second-largest healthcare operation in the Orlando area, said on Monday that it would cut its workforce by as many as 400 jobs – or as much as 3 percent – affecting all eight of its hospitals.
The move, the first since Orlando Health was founded in 1918, will affect such flagship hospitals as the Orlando Regional Medical Center and the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
The nonprofit company has about 16,000 employees.
"Health-care reform mandates and changes in reimbursement structures for Medicare and Medicaid are forcing health-care organizations throughout the U.S. to confront new challenges," Sherrie Sitarik, Orlando Health’s president and CEO, told the Sentinel. “We must find better ways to deliver enhanced value to patients and lower the overall cost of care.”
The first wave of workers affected received layoff notices on Friday, Kena Lewis, an Orlando Health spokeswoman, told the Sentinel. The remaining employees will be laid off after the first of the year.
Jobs also will be cut via attrition and no new positions will be filled, Lewis told the Sentinel.
But Orlando Health will continue with its $300 million expansion and renovation of the Medical Center and its $50 million acquisition of Physician Associates, a large, primary-care medical practice, the Sentinel reports.
That deal is expected to be complete on Dec. 31.
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