Tenet offloads Arizona hospital citing decline in community demand for services
The announcement comes a little more than a week after Texas-based healthcare giant announced sale of MacNeal Hospital in Chicago.
Credit: Abrazo Community Health Network
Tenet-owned Arizona hospital Abrazo Maryvale Campus will close its doors for good come mid-December after a gradual scaling back of services that started in May, the system announced.
The facility will remain open and continue treating patients until Dec. 18. However, the ER will stop treating patients after the 17th, and the hospital will no longer admit patients after the first of the month.
[Also: Loyola Medicine buys Tenet's MacNeal Hospital, lays groundwork for exit from Chicago market]
"Over the past several years Abrazo Maryvale has experienced a significant decline in community demand for its services," said Frank Molinaro, market CEO of Abrazo Community Health Network. "The Abrazo Community Health Network's top priority is delivering high-quality, cost-effective care to residents of the greater Phoenix area, and we are properly allocating our resources to meet our patients' and our communities' healthcare needs."
The system said the closure should not affect access to care in the community, with four other full-service acute care hospitals within six miles. Abrazo Maryvale 's ED handles 43,000 visits each year. The remaining area hospitals hold 157 ER treatment rooms and the capacity for another 90,000 ER visits above their current volume.
[Also: Tenet to sell Philadelphia hospitals to Paladin]
A local report said the closure would affect about 300 employees, however the system said in their announcement that all those employees in good standing would have priority for open positions elsewhere in the Abrazo Community Health Network for which they are qualified.
The announcement comes little more than a week after Tenet revealed the sale of their MacNeal Hospital in Chicago to Loyola Medicine, and sources close to Tenet said it's a deal that spells the beginning of the end for the healthcare giant in the Chicago market, where they have three other hospitals they plan to sell: Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park. They own no other hospitals in the market, sources said.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Tenet's 2.1 percent market share as of 2015 meant they were lagging behind other big players like Advocate Health Care, Northwestern and Rush.
In 2015, MacNeal and West Suburban Hospital were profitable but Weis and Westlake were not. Their sale, then, comes as no big surprise, given that Tenet is focusing their resources on hospitals that hold the first or second highest market share in their respective areas, the Tribune said.
Twitter: @BethJSanborn
Email the writer: beth.sanborn@himssmedia.com
