St. Charles restructures to support ongoing growth

St. Charles Health System has experienced rapid growth in the services and amount of care provided throughout Central Oregon in recent years. The growth is aligned with increases in population and demand for care in the region and has mostly occurred in the outpatient and specialty services areas of the organization.

"We have been in a position to step in and support maintaining some key services in the region in recent years including orthopedics and neurosurgery, pharmacy, urology, gastroenterology and specialized cancer care, just to name a few," said Michael Hartke, incoming president and CEO. "As a nonprofit, local health care organization, we have the responsibility and the privilege of ensuring our patients have access to the care they need and we are proud to be able to provide it."

To maintain this growth and ensure the organization is set up for success over the long term, St. Charles recently completed an evaluation of leader spans of control, titles and market alignment - for all supervisors and above - throughout the health system. Changes are being made to fairly balance responsibilities for those in leadership positions across the health system and to structure the system for continued growth.

As a result, a small number of leadership positions in support services areas of the organization will be eliminated. This includes 22 positions that are currently filled and 23 positions that are vacant. In addition, ongoing work will occur to bring titles into alignment over time. No direct patient care positions are impacted by these changes, which affect less than 1% of the St. Charles workforce.

"I want to sincerely thank the people being impacted by today's hard news for their incredible contributions to St. Charles and wish them nothing but the best going forward," Hartke said. "The changes we are making today are about setting ourselves up for a more sustainable and scalable structure for the future and I want to reassure our community that St. Charles is strong, stable and committed to meeting community needs."