Given the uncertainty of Mercy Iowa City, Steindler now is considering performing surgery at hospitals in Cedar Rapids too – including UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital and Mercy Medical Center, both Cedar Rapids, and other in-patient hospitals regionally.
Mercy Iowa City this morning is holding a series of “all staff” meetings to announce upcoming changes for the 194-bed hospital — including the appointment of a new CEO, the hire of a operations-improvement consultant, and a new plan to end its relationship with MercyOne.
Moody’s Investors Service again has downgraded Mercy Iowa City Hospital’s credit rating following “severe cash flow deterioration, from historically weak levels, which has resulted in material and rapid cash burn.”
Mercy Iowa City Hospital in recent months had to retain a “strategic and operational performance improvement” consultant after breaching debt coverage obligations amid declining patient days and occupancy percentages. Just two miles west, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is overrun with as many as 70 people waiting in the emergency room at one time.
Over a budget year in which Mercy Iowa City sought a new managing partner, entertained a takeover offer from University of Iowa Health Care, and tried to climb back from tens of millions in pandemic-incurred losses, new documents made public last week show finances for the Iowa City-based hospital only worsened.
Adding to the growing list of construction and renovation projects University of Iowa Health Care is pursuing in and around its campus, UIHC now is asking an outside development team to design, plan and build it a new primary care medical office building in Iowa City. Competing hospitals are concerned, saying primary care needs in the area are already well-served.
A Wellman man is suing Mercy Hospital in Iowa City for giving him 10 times the dose of an opioid drug for pain that a doctor prescribed after he broke his ribs in a fall.
An Eastern Iowa hospital has been cited by the state for hiring, without a full background check, a nurse who was later fired for the suspected theft of opioid narcotics.
Among four proposals Mercy Iowa City entertained last year in its search for a new partner was one from University of Iowa Health Care offering more than $605 million to take ownership of the community hospital and make it the “centerpiece” of a new UIHC “community division.”
A year after Mercy Iowa City announced plans to exit its four-year affiliation with the statewide MercyOne health network and integrate into a larger health care system, the community hospital is pulling the plug on its search for a new partner and sticking with MercyOne.
Seven weeks after the state approved construction of a new $19.2 million Steindler North Liberty Ambulatory Surgery Center near the booming I-380 and Forevergreen Road corridor, the affiliated Steindler Orthopedic Clinic on April 25 sold its Iowa City home base for $11 million.
Employees are retiring, moving to less stressful careers, as UI works to hire hundreds
Following a stinging denial in February and another unexpected delay over the summer, University of Iowa Health Care’s revamped application to build a new $230 million facility off Interstate-380 in North Liberty is set to have a second shot before the State Health Facilities Council on Aug. 31.
Sean Williams will resign as Mercy Iowa City president and chief executive officer effective Sept. 30, the hospital said Wednesday.
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