GOLD BEACH – The Curry Hospital District expects to save more than $1 million annually as the result of cutting back staff as the first part of recommendations by its consultants in an effort to stem substantial losses suffered by the hospital over the past two years.

“We’ve done the first half, with 23 positions eliminated last week,” Bill McMillan, chief executive officer of Curry General Hospital Health Network said Wednesday at the regular meeting of the health district’s board of directors.

He said those cutbacks would save $928,000 in direct salary, or $1.1 million counting benefits.

“We’re looking at an additional three I know of right now we can shed between January and March, which would be an additional $100,000,” he said.

McMillan said he may come back to the board with a different staffing model.

A staff member said that none of the positions eliminated were floor nurses, but some assignments had been changed.

The Curry Health District Board of Directors earlier this month voted to accept the recommendation of their consultants, which included reducing the number of employees.

The health district was told by its auditors in October that it had lost a substantial amount of money during the past two fiscal years, which could endanger the district’s ability to stay in business.

The audit noted the District’s management is establishing productivity standards and is continuing to analyze less profitable operations, the District’s rate structure, potential new profitable services, and other strategies to improve the District’s operating results.

The audit showed that the hospital district reported an operating loss of $1,132,000 in the last fiscal year, although Chief Financial Officer Mark Sayler notes that with the property tax collected by the district, that is reduced to $936,000. The loss in Fiscal Year 2010 was $552,000. 

The district, which operates Curry General Hospital in Gold Beach, Curry Medical Center in Brookings and Curry Family Medical in Port Orford, had operating income of $466,000 in fiscal year 2009.

The district notes that much of the problem is the economy, and decreased payments from government health plans.

The Curry Health District hired Quorum Health Resources (QHR) of Brentwood, Tenn., as consultants to help it pull its way out of the losses.

QHR recently prepared a staffing assessment of the hospital which was presented to the board of directors early this month.

The report said that the hospital has had challenges implementing tools for managing labor and was unsure if current staffing levels were appropriate.

“Hospital leadership and the management team generally agree there are areas of the hospital that have opportunity for staffing efficiencies,” the report said.

It said the hospital should implement recommended productivity targets and use a biweekly monitoring tool to manage labor productivity.

QHR said that the hospital did not track productivity on a routine basis and that hiring decisions are often made based on the amount of staff departments have maintained in the past.

It made several other recommendations, including some that would reduce overtime.