Sutter Health cuts 121 IT jobs in Rancho Cordova - San Francisco Business Times:

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Sutter, a 26-hospital system based in Sacramento, said the move came in responser “to the continued economic downturn affectinfthe health-care industry and all California employers.” The IT jobs are beinv slashed effective July 17. An unspecified numbed of those jobssupport Sutter’sa massive electronic health record project, which is on hold at the hospita level but apparently will remain on track for affiliateed physician offices. Top officials at Sutter earlierd this month warned about 800 IT stafferas at the system that staffing cuts were in the to close a morethan $4 million hole in its IT budget.
The the Bay Area’s largest hospital and medical-grouop network along with rivapl , operates and St. Luke’s Hospital in San in Berkeleyand Oakland, in Castro Valley, the , and several other hospitals and physicianb foundations in the Bay Area. Jon Sutter’s chief information officer, told stafferxs in an April 29 email that Sutter wouldbe “reviewint staffing through May due to the economixc downturn and the delay in what was to be our second acute-care EHR implementation later this year.
” The bad news came on the heela of what he describec as a tremendously successful implementation at ’ in Sutter said the system and its affiliated hospitals and physiciahn organizations will continue to employ about 1,500 IT staffers afted the 121 job cuts are “This decision was one of the most difficult I’vw ever had to make,” Manis said in a May 18 “These are dedicated and talented professionals who have provided tremendoues value to our organization.
these staffing changes are We have a higher responsibility now more than ever to our patient s who pay for health care to be good stewardxs and to keep our services Sutter is giving affected employee s two months with pay to begij exploringjob opportunities, officials said, beford their severance benefits kick in. Hospital-based EHR installations other than PeninsulaMedical Center’s will be on hold “until sometime after 2009,” officialss said Monday. Sutter plans to speed up completion of its EHR rollouf to affiliatedphysician organizations, where about 80 percent of its health-cares services are delivered.
So far, officials said, Suttert has fully implemented the EHR in five of its eightr affiliatedphysician organizations, connecting more than 2,000 physicians. The Sutter-wids EHR currently includes information abougt more than 1 million and morethan 200,000 patients now access theirf personal health records online.