WATERVILLE — About 500 food service and housekeeping jobs at Northern Light Health acute care locations in Maine will be taken over by another company starting Jan. 1, 2025, according to a Northern Light official.
Compass One Healthcare will provide food, nutrition and hospitality services to locations including Northern Light Inland Hospital and Northern Light Continuing Care, Lakewood in Waterville, according to Suzanne Spruce, senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer for Northern Light Health. No layoffs will occur, and all employees affected by the change will have a chance to transition their employment to Compass One, she said in emails Friday and Saturday.
Based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, Compass One provides services for 2,200 hospitals and health care systems in 45 states, according to its website. The agreement with Compass One was announced to staff Tuesday.
The change will “reduce costs through alignment and efficiencies in operational functions while creating new opportunities for team members in support services,” Spruce said.
Northern Light Health, which has a total of 10,000 employees at all its locations, over the last several months has been making changes in an effort to transform care delivery and access, to address patient needs, according to Spruce.
The changes, she said, are designed to provide high quality, consistent care for patients, invest in critical staff and equipment and ensure access to health care for people in Maine, now and in the future.
“Some of these changes affect the administrative structure of the organization such as the leadership changes announced this week,” she said, “where we have consolidated three senior leadership roles and asked the leaders of Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, Northern Light Inland Hospital and Northern Light Foundation to resign their positions. These changes reduce operational costs while creating shared oversight roles and responsibilities to better align services — for our communities and our staff.”
Tricia Costigan’s resignation Thursday as president of Northern Light Inland Hospital and Northern Light Continuing Care, Lakewood came a day after the president of Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor also stepped down. Costigan had served as president since May 2022.
Randy Clark, a senior vice president at Northern Light Health and president of Northern Light Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield, will lead the Waterville hospital at 200 Kennedy Memorial Drive and the adjacent nursing care center, while continuing in his other roles, according to Spruce.
Northern Light Health announced to employees Wednesday that Greg LaFrancois, president of Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, had stepped down from his position. LaFrancois had served as president for slightly more than a year.
Ava Collins, leader of Northern Light Lafayette Family Cancer Institute, is to serve as interim president. The search for a permanent successor to LaFrancois is planned for the spring.
Mike Smith’s roles at Northern Light Health Foundation and as vice president of Northern Light Health were eliminated and Charlie Therrien, senior vice president of Northern Light Health and president of Northern Light Mercy Hospital, will carry duties of the foundation president and will remain Mercy’s president. Cynthia Faulkner, consultant, director of philanthropy for Mercy Hospital and vice president of philanthropy services, will provide operational oversight.
The changes are part of efforts to reduce operating expenses and establish a smaller, more nimble leadership team, according to Spruce.
Confirming that Northern Light showed a $60 million-plus deficit halfway through this year, Spruce said “health care is facing significant headwinds nationwide.”
“Higher costs of supplies, labor shortages and other concerns necessitates we transform care delivery and access to address patient needs,” she said. “As an organization, we are working to streamline processes, implement new service delivery models and realign our teams.”
Asked about some Northern Light services that have seen changes, Spruce confirmed that a hearing center in Bangor closed when one audiologist left the area and Northern Light couldn’t recruit another to keep the office open. But, she said, there are community audiology resources available and Northern Light helped patients seek alternative providers.
Asked about a medical facility in Dexter that closed, she said Northern Light had four practices within 15 miles of Dexter and seven within 25 miles of that town. The building that housed it had multiple floors, no longer adhered to standards of a patient care facility and required significant investment, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, she said.
A clinic in Southwest Harbor also was closed, as well as a primary care practice in Orono. Northern Light has made some changes to primary care practice locations over the last two years to ensure staff and patients have the best care experience possible, according to Spruce.
“In the cases of Dexter and Southwest Harbor, aging facilities, the cost of facility maintenance and improvements, and lack of suitable, affordable local alternatives for office space played a major role in the decision,” she said. “For Southwest Harbor and Orono, staffing, staff support, and resources were influential. Staffing a primary care practice requires a team of people to ensure that patients are able to receive the care they need without disruption and to ensure that staff have the resources they need to have sick days, take time off, and have work-life balance. By consolidating staff in fewer locations, we can ensure a more consistent experience for patients and staff who care for them.”
Asked about Northern Light’s decision to start charging for ambulance service to several towns in Penobscot County, Spruce said the change was necessary to continue to care for communities for generations to come.
“Ambulance services are not free for anyone, and we needed to cover our operational expenses,” she said. “The cost of providing 911 service dramatically exceeds the reimbursement of those services for many reasons, including that time spent waiting for calls is not reimbursed. This is not unique to Northern Light Health.”
Northern Light Health, she said, has been carrying the entire burden of all costs that are not reimbursed by payors, and Northern Light Medical Transport is no longer able to feasibly support the configuration of the initial agreements.
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