By Aleasha Sandley, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com
ANDERSON - Community Hospital Anderson will transition its extended care services from the hospital facility into its nursing homes, leaving 46 employees uncertain of their jobs.
Community spokeswoman Katy Harrison-Troxell said extended care services would be moved to Community Northview nursing home in Anderson and Community Parkview nursing home in Elwood, or patients could go to any other care facility they wanted.
The 46 employees who work in the closing unit will be shuffled around to any open positions for which they are qualified within the Community network, which includes medical facilities in Elwood and Indianapolis.
The unit is located in a part of the hospital built in 1965, and the expense of needed repairs was quickly adding up - totaling about $3 million - to keep the extended care service open.
"In this economy, we are watching our dollar on everything," Harrison-Troxell said. "It wasn't an easy decision."
Patients must be out of the extended care unit by July 10, but Betty Crum, director of long-term care and services, said most of them would be out anyway, as most patients stay for 14-20 days.
Extended care often involves patients who need more rehabilitation after surgeries or accidents. About 20-25 of the unit's beds were usually filled, Crum said, often with seniors but sometimes with other patients who needed short-term solutions after being treated with acute care.
Workers in the unit include nurses, social service workers and case managers.
Crum opened the unit in 1988, when the area did not have many skilled extended care facilities. Now, nursing homes are capable of caring for those types of patients, with a medical director and skilled nurses on staff.
"It's different now because those services can be provided within nursing homes," Harrison-Troxell said.
Saint John's Health System, Anderson's other hospital facility, closed its extended care facility about two years ago, she said.
"It was kind of a duplication of services," Harrison-Troxell said. "We're kind of in an easier situation because we own our (nursing home) facilities."
Crum said patients would pay the same amount for the care they will receive in the nursing homes once the unit closes. The doctors who can easily visit the patients in the hospital at Community, however, might not be able to follow them to the new extended care facilities, where they will primarily be cared for by the facilities' medical directors.
"As far as care, we're all licensed as skilled," Crum said. "We just have to make sure they get the service they need."
Talks have been going on for some time about the possibility of closing the hospital's extended care unit, but the final decision was made recently. Crum informed all the unit's workers of the decision at a meeting Wednesday.
"It was very hard," said Crum, who interviewed and hired all the unit's original staff. "I felt that it was best to do it in person. Difficult decisions are made all the time, and you have to do what's best for the hospital and for the network."
Open positions for which the extended care unit's staff would qualify are being held open throughout the network, which could total enough jobs that no workers will be laid off. If they choose not to take the other jobs, which could be in Elwood or Indianapolis, the hospital will offer a severance package.
For now, a hiring freeze has been placed on all jobs for which those workers would qualify.
"We're certainly hoping to be able to place the majority of employees," Crum said. "There are a lot of good employees that we would like to find positions for."
Community Anderson Vice President and Chief Foundation Officer Keith Trent said the workers in the extended care unit would be missed.
"It's just a very difficult decision for everybody," he said. "There's a lot of emotion, and we all feel it. The people who work there are uniquely gifted to work there. It takes a special kind of person to provide that care."
Hospital officials don't yet know what will become of the space the extended care unit now occupies, but it likely won't be fit for patients because of the repairs needed.