Sisters of Mercy restructuring may cut St. John's jobs

Mercy officials told St. John’s management last month that reorganization and consolidation of the parent company’s information services divisions could shrink system-wide employment by 100. St. John’s officials are unsure how many jobs, if any, would be lost in Springfield.

“People are, understandably, concerned,” said Cora Scott, St. John’s spokesperson. “They did say that they could possibly estimate 100 less employees across the whole system.”

About 150 people are employed in St. John’s information services department, but they are not considered St. John’s employees. They work directly for Sisters of Mercy, Scott said.

There are 500 information services employees throughout Mercy’s 19-hospital system, said Barb Meyer, director of communications for Sisters of Mercy Health System in St. Louis.

Meyer said it is too early to tell how reorganizing might impact information services departments at its various subsidiaries. Mercy officials are one month into the restructuring plan and hope to finalize it by fall.

Relocating some of the Springfield jobs is not out of the question, though. “Our main data center is here in St. Louis,” Meyer said. “That’s a reality.”

Employment levels at the data center and in Springfield are about the same, according to Scott.

Before any jobs are shuffled, though, Meyer said the plan calls for new directors to lead various information applications, such as clinical, financial and human resource services. Leading the charge is Mercy’s relatively new chief information officer, Dick Escue. Escue, based in St. Louis, was named vice president/CIO in December.

“Under him we have (hired) three individuals, and now we’re identifying the next layer of leadership,” Meyer said.

Interviews are ongoing for eight second-tier director positions, Meyer said. Scott said St. John’s CIO Pat McGuire plans to remain in that position, but he has encouraged some staff to apply as directors. Scott said Mercy officials have said positions would be filled based on qualifications, not willingness to relocate.

“If there are some qualified candidates in Springfield that would like to stay in Springfield, that is definitely a possibility,” Scott said.

Meyer said it was an organizational decision to restructure, with economics and efficiencies at the forefront, along with quality and service issues.

“We really needed to take a different look at how we were managing our technology,” she said. “We are looking at standardizing all of our information technology across our entire system.”

The current system prohibits information from being shared across different hospital systems, Meyer said. Mercy has hospitals in seven markets.

“Frequently, we’re using different versions of the same software in different facilities,” Meyer said. “We’re going to eliminate that inability to transfer information … across the entire organization.”

Scott said St. John’s is the largest health system, geographically speaking, among Mercy’s regional subsidiaries.

“Since we have such unique needs, we’ll always have a considerable, sizable (information systems) staff here in Springfield,” Scott said.

Until local officials hear otherwise, business will continue as usual in St. John’s information services department, Scott said.