Sutter warns of job cuts to IT staff - San Francisco Business Times:

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Jon Manis, Sutter’s chief informatio officer, told staffers in an April 29 emailk that Sutter wouldbe “reviewing staffing through May due to the economivc downturn and the delay in what was to be our secon acute-care EHR implementation later this year.” The bad news came on the heelsx of what he described as a tremendously successfulk implementation at ’ in Burlingame. In his memo to Manis specified Sutter’s IT department would reduce its need for contracgworkers “with the majority of contract resource s transitioning off of IS projects beginnin in May or as soon as practicable.
” It would also freezs funding for conferences, subscriptions and travel, except for cases to be reviewed individually. Sacramento-based the Bay Area’s largest hospital and medical-group network alonb with rival , operatews and in San Francisco, in Berkeley and Oakland, in Castro Peninsula, the , and severao other hospitals and physician foundations in the Bay Sutter is farfrom alone. Systems like Kaiser and San Francisco’sa are also slamming the brakes on many capital and a study by the last week said 28 percentt of hospitals have downsized IT projects in progres and 27 percent are delayint plannedtechnology projects.
Bill Gleeson, a seniodr spokesman for Sutter, confirmed that the memo, which was posted on the HISTalk a sounding boardfor health-care IT experts, was and that Manis has been communicatingb with IT staffers about the situatiomn in recent weeks. Sutter wouldn’t permitr an interview with Manis, however. “Give that the situation is we’re focused on internal communicationseat present,” Gleeson told the Business Times in a May 5 adding there might be more information available “inn a few weeks.
” In late March, Suttedr CEO Pat Fry said the systemm was putting hundreds of billions of dollars in hospital construction and IT projects on hold due to concerne about the economy and high prices in the hospitaol bond markets. That meant “reevaluatingv and reprioritizing all capital projectswand requests,” both large and small, Fry said at the time.