Nanotech vs. Hospital, which is most beneficial to area?

[Clipper]

www.uticaod.com/news/20160302/nanotechonolgy-site-work-continues-at-ams-location-buildings-to-rise-in-spring

"Recently, $100 million was reallocated from a proposed downtown Utica hospital project to the Marcy nano site."

It looks like the Marcy project is finally coming to fruition after many years of promises of high paying tech jobs. The article also states that they forecast about 4000 jobs over a ten year period.

While a new hospital and consolidated services would be beneficial, are the present facilities not adequate as far as providing a satisfactory level of care? Is it not more beneficial to the area to finally see progress at the Marcy site?

I may be wrong, but it seems that bringing 4000 potential jobs to the area is more beneficial than building the hospital, streamlining the healthcare, but also eliminating jobs.

Clarence, with your wife working in healthcare, maybe you can provide an informed opinion, and perhaps Strikeslip will see the thread and weigh in on the subject.

[Deleted]

Marcy Nano is all hype. The last estimate of jobs was around 2,000. We need both if it happens. The hospital and Nano. The hospital is nice but that is basically more service jobs for low entry people who are more in need.

[Deleted]

And don't forget the 300 million promised for the new hospital is not in the budget. If one is built but I doubt it the building should be placed off the thruway with its own ramp into and off of the thruway with connector ramps to Utica roadway. The area around it can be open for development for future year.

[clarencebunsen]

I can tell you what I see but I'm only a semi-insider. I don't see budgets or sit in board rooms. Everything right now is being driven by dollars. Both local hospitals are not-for-profit and both have drawn from their reserves heavily in the 2010s. In their last full year before they affiliated St. E's lost in the low double digits millions of dollars and St Luke's lost in the high single digits millions. Their present affiliation is at best a stop-gap measure not a long term solution. St. E's facility is 100 years old and well past it's useful life. It's inefficient logistically, in energy use, in layout. St. Luke's is better, only 50 years but still not up to date.

This is not a situation unique to Utica. I think there have been only 2 new hospitals opened in NY in the last few decades. There have been a wave of consolidations which will probably accelerate. Little Falls affiliated with Basset and now operated as a "community access" hospital with only a limited number of beds, 25 I think. Major cases are all transferred out. Rome Hospital just hired a new CEO. I was a little puzzled when I read his background, he was trained as an industrial engineer. According to Barb he is a merger specialist and his last 2 jobs were guiding health care organizations through the process of being acquired. My personal opinion is that best case Rome will affiliate with Utica or Basset. Next best would be an affiliation with a Syracuse hospital. An unlikely but possible scenario would be an acquisition by a Kaiser-Permante type organization looking for an opening in New York. I also think the same set of possibilities is likely for Oneida Healthcare.

[dave]

It might be appropriate to think about Tech vs. Medical in the following context. Tech jobs can move across the globe almost overnight. The Nano project has a lot of taxpayer money in it, but so does it have lots from corporations who are involved. For them, profit is their god and I think what's happened in America over the past couple of decades should convince us that corporations will send jobs out of the country in a heartbeat if it improves their bottom line and they can figure out a way around regulations (and prior agreements.)

Medical jobs draw mostly from the local population and can provide careers with worthwhile remuneration. When you spend $2000 at hospital, most of the money stays in the community, whereas when you buy a 60 inch television a lot of the money goes overseas to either foreign companies or to American corporations' foreign plants and centers.

Medical is an American growth industry. Nanotech sounds spiffy now but could become outdated in a matter of weeks.

[Clipper]

Am I incorrect in assuming that consolidating three hospitals into one will result in the loss of jobs for local healthcare workers?

My question is whether Cuomo's decision to withdraw the money from the hospital project and reallocate it to the nanotech area a wise move that would better benefit the local economy and employment situation. I was mainly focused on the number of people that would gain employment as opposed to the number of jobs that would be lost in the hospital consolidation.

Heck, in today's world the is NO guarantee that ANY company is going to STAY in NY State (or any other state for that matter) if taxes and other costs of doing business make it more profitable for them to locate elsewhere. The companies moving into the nanotech park in Marcy could quite possibly decide to move after all tax incentives and other freebies have expired if it becomes more beneficial to the bottom line.

[clarencebunsen]

Mar 3, 2016 7:36:03 GMT -5 Clipper said:

Am I incorrect in assuming that consolidating three hospitals into one will result in the loss of jobs for local healthcare workers?

My question is whether Cuomo's decision to withdraw the money from the hospital project and reallocate it to the nanotech area a wise move that would better benefit the local economy and employment situation. I was mainly focused on the number of people that would gain employment as opposed to the number of jobs that would be lost in the hospital consolidation.

Heck, in today's world the is NO guarantee that ANY company is going to STAY in NY State (or any other state for that matter) if taxes and other costs of doing business make it more profitable for them to locate elsewhere. The companies moving into the nanotech park in Marcy could quite possibly decide to move after all tax incentives and other freebies have expired if it becomes more beneficial to the bottom line.

The consolidations which have happened so far have not led to a reduction in the number of people who touch or interact with patients. There has been a reduction the management and executive structure and possibly a reduction in net medical payroll in Utica. Long term however and country wide I think the percent of our GDP going to the healthcare sector has been on the increase for several decades.

I think I can illustrate the trends I've seen with some excerpts from Barb's career. She graduated from nursing school in 1973 and went to work at the Catholic hospital in Duluth. At that time the head nurse on her floor was a nun who conducted uniform inspection each Monday. Sister would line her nurses up and have each kneel down. In order to pass the hem of the nurse's uniform had to touch the floor.

From then until 1984 we moved several times and she worked at 2 different hospitals and a nursing home in the Twin Cities. During that time she was a staff nurse and often a charge nurse. A charge nurse is a staff nurse who does patient care but also takes on additional administrative duties for a shift. In 1974 the pay bump for doing that was $.25/hour. I remember one day when she came home and said, "I can't believe all the hassle I put up with for $2.00."

She was on the "Mommy track" during that time, going to part time as our children were born and the first two started school. At the time she also continued her education picking up additional skills when she could.

In 1984 I was offered a new job here and we moved to NY. I had gotten a raise to entice me to move and she was pregnant with our 4th child so she took nearly a year off. Also neither St. E's or St. Luke's were willing to pay her what she thought she was worth.

In 1985, St. Luke's made her a better offer. They needed a nurse in ICU and she was already trained to use the telemetry monitors so they made a deal.

She worked at several different units at St. Luke's and continued her education, picking up a BA & a Master's. Sometime around 1995 they offered her a position of Unit Manager (basically the old Head Nurse job) but with a catch. She had to manage 2 units. No one there had ever done that and she had to create the mechanisms to do it. It was crazy and impossible. She had 130 people reporting to her directly. That's 130 annual reviews, 130 vacations to schedule. Every other Sunday evening we would do a two week schedule for both her units. She would take all the hand written vacation requests and time off requests and start filling out a spreadsheet by hand for each unit staffing each for 3 shifts per day, seven days per week. I would then do the totals making sure each person (some full time some part time) had the required number of shifts and the each unit had the required number of nurses, aides and secretaries for each shift in the period. Then she would start making calls to fill in any holes. Somehow she made it all work

Her next big adventure in consolidation came when St. Luke's and Faxton merged. At that time she was in charge of Nursing Quality. She suddenly had an office and staff at each building with very different cultures. She had to convince them that they were being paid by Faxton-St. Luke's and no matter which building they consider their home, if they were assigned a problem in the other building they had to deal with it. Again, it somehow worked.

With the affiliation of Faxton-St.Luke's and St. E's Barb once again hs offices and staffs in two different buildings. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. One of the reasons the previous mash-up have worked is the personal relationship of 3 women. Barb's boss for many years came from Faxton. She is now the CNO of the combined system. Barb's right hand person (and presumptive successor) was working at St. E's when they met at the SUNY Master's program. She left St. E's to work for Barb. She now finds herself giving work direction to people she used to work with.

The final chapter will play out this fall. Barb told the HR director that she was planning to retire, the reply asked her to reconsider. She responded with a plan to work for 6 months on a very specific plan. The board appears to be divided. One faction says "There is no way we can pay that much for a part time employee." The other says, "There is no way we can pay that little for that level of expertise. "

[Deleted]

CB Said: "I remember one day when she came home and said, "I can't believe all the hassle I put up with for $2.00."

So in terms of the additional 6 months toward retirement and the financial offer she can either say I can't believe all the hassle I put up with for $1.75 or $2.25!

[dave]

CB, what strikes me from your post is that Barb is a very capable and accomplished woman. Astute would also apply, as well as dedicated, the latter because she spends so much effort in return for what might be considered by some a pittance. Folks like your wife often float NGOs, charities, hospitals, schools, etc. The do most of the work, but receive less than their due for their efforts. In fact, we derive quite a bit of service from people like your wife.We used to recognize such people in our community. It's a shame we don't seem to do so today.