Boise, Idaho-based St. Luke's Health System confirmed it will eliminate positions and create about 300 new ones as it redesigns the organization under a new population health model.
The system, which serve communities across Idaho, told Becker's interested employees can apply for the newly created positions, and it won't know the number of people affected until the end of January.
"It could be 30 people impacted, it could be 100. We won't know for a couple of months given the number of options impacted employees will have," said hospital spokesperson Anita Kissée. "We encourage our employees to apply, and hope many will remain with us, but when all of this settles at the end of January, we anticipate our organization may be less than 1 percent smaller.
"People may opt not to take a new position and choose to take a severance instead," she said.
As part of the organizational redesign, St. Luke's eliminated the site administrator position. Ms. Kissée said three site administrators were promoted to population health vice president.
"The new population health vice president roles are critical to our organization redesign because they will be responsible for a bigger-picture view, rather than site-by-site," she added.
St. Luke's has also put two leaders — a practicing physician and an administrator — over its 11 service lines. They will play key roles in the system's strategy moving forward.
Ms. Kissée said more changes are in the works, affecting the system's Centers for Excellence, Office of Strategy Results, operational governance and systems and processes.
"Being able to operate more efficiently is a key component of St. Luke's organizational design work," said Chris Roth, St. Luke's senior vice president and COO. "Healthcare costs across the board are too high. By lowering our own costs, St. Luke's has the opportunity to reduce waste, realize savings and reinvest those back into improving outcomes and lowering costs for patients."