EDMONDS – Although Stevens Hospital could end this year with a net loss of up to $2 million, next year’s $134 million budget calls for the public hospital to break even.
That would be a step toward financial recovery for the taxpayer-supported organization, which has suffered net losses every year except one since 1998.
“We’re on a path toward profitability … and financial stability,” said Dr. John Todd, chief executive. “It’s a step, not the end of the path.”
The projection is included in a preliminary budget outline for 2005 for the hospital, its clinics and affiliated businesses.
Next year’s estimated revenues of $134.1 million are about $1 million more than the revenues the hospital expects to take in this year. The budget projects that bond and levy tax money will provide the hospital with about $3.8 million in 2005.
Earlier this year, Todd brought in consultants from Wellspring Partners Ltd., who specialize in financial turnarounds, to help the organization regain its financial footing.
A number of actions have been taken to streamline its business operations. Changes in purchasing and supplies, for example, will save the organization $460,000 by year’s end, said Matt Harrison, one of Wellspring’s financial specialists.
The firm also suggested careful monitoring of the number of patients. That way, the hospital can trim the number of nurses hired from employment agencies, which are more expensive, and hire hospital employees.
Those and other measures will save the hospital about $1.9 million a year. “Our goal is about $2.8 million” in annual savings, Harrison said.
The hospital also has announced that:
* A one-year contract has been approved by members of the Service Employees International Union. Registered nurses will get a 4 percent raise, and service workers will get a 3.5 percent raise in the next year.
* Radia, an Everett-based medical imaging group, will take over X-ray and other diagnostic imaging duties beginning in January.
* Doctors who specialize in intensive care will be brought to the hospital by early 2005.
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