It’s been a year since the MultiCare Health System acquired the financially troubled Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital.
The corporate brass came to town with new signs for the front doors and big promises about the future when they announced the purchase in October 2022.
“The people of Yakima Valley will see MultiCare’s mission of partnering for healing and a healthy future in action starting today,” CEO Bill Robertson said at the time.
It was a bold statement, considering Yakima’s largest hospital, like most across the state, has been hemorrhaging money while trying to address staff demands for higher pay and better working conditions.
Somehow, though, MultiCare has just announced plans to open a second emergency department within the next two years or so. Tammy Buyok, the new president of MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital, told the Rotary Club of Yakima two weeks ago that the hospital will license a new off-campus ER that can accommodate 30,000 patient visits per year.
That could significantly reduce the burden on Memorial’s current emergency department, which saw more than 90,000 patients in 2022 — a workload rivaling New York City’s.
Business has been brisk at the 73-year-old, 226-bed hospital for the past few years. Since the 2020 closure of Astria Regional Medical Center, our growing city has had only Memorial’s ER to turn to in health crises.
When the COVID-19 catastrophe hit, shift schedules got even tighter, hours got longer and staff stress levels zigzagged off the charts. It sent many health care professionals running for the exits, forcing Memorial and other hospitals to hire expensive traveling workers to fill in.
It all contributed to a number of procedures needing to be shipped to out-of-town hospitals, adding wrenching emotional and financial burdens on local patients and their families.
MultiCare’s answer has involved reconfiguring staffing, which meant the elimination of 37 support positions in Yakima in June. The company has also ramped up recruitment in an effort to hire full-time staffers and reduce reliance on more costly traveling subs.
MultiCare’s June Altaras, who is executive vice president and chief quality, safety and nursing officer, said during a teleconference last month that the effort is working. The health system’s hope, she added, is that anesthesia, gastroenterology, neurology, cardiology and pediatrics treatments could soon return to Yakima.
However, Memorial and most of the other Washington hospitals are still losing money. Not as much — collectively, another $750 million in the first half of this year, compared with $1.2 billion for the same period in 2022. But the bleeding hasn’t exactly stopped.
Meantime, the union representing 1,200 Memorial workers, has been negotiating for more pay for its members.
So it’s difficult to understand how MultiCare can pull off buying, equipping and staffing a new emergency department. How is it possible?
Without question, a second ER would be a godsend for the Yakima Valley. Shorter wait times mean longer odds for successful treatments, particularly in cases like heart attacks, strokes, gunshot wounds — all too common in the Yakima Valley.
Sending ER patients halfway across the state for treatment makes no medical sense. As Altaras noted last month, “Time is tissue.”
Expansion amid financial losses seems risky. But MultiCare’s management, which has already added five off-campus emergency departments in the Tacoma area, seems confident.
Memorial’s Buyok said the 12-bed ER planned for Yakima will have a CAT scanner, ultrasound, X-ray machines, a pharmacy and a laboratory. The plan is to have it ready to go by late 2025 or early 2026.
We hope they succeed.
