93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
Boone County’s sixth-largest employer is cutting 62 positions, most of them unfilled.
Our news partner KMIZ reports while most of the Boone Health positions being cut are unfilled, 15 are current positions. Those 15 employees will receive a severance, according to ABC-17.
Boone Health’s chief executive officer says the cuts of part of Boone’s “continuing effort to contain costs and increase efficiencies.”
Statistics from Columbia’s Regional Economic Development Incorporated (REDI) show Boone Hospital Center currently has 1,581 employees. Boone Hospital Center is the sixth-largest employer in Boone County, behind the University of Missouri, MU Health Care, Veterans United Home Loans, Columbia Public Schools (CPS) and Truman VA.
Meantime, one of Boone Hospital’s board members says she still believes in Boone. Longtime Stephens College president Dianne Lynch addressed Boone Hospital’s issues Saturday morning on 939 the Eagle’s “CEO Roundtable.” She praises their entire team and culture.
“You have this group of incredibly dedicated, incredibly talented and experienced and skilled health care providers, health care practitioners, health care administrators, who are working day in and day out to find the right way forward for this amazing institution to be independent and to be successfully independent,” Lynch says.
President Lynch tells listeners that patients come first at Boone. She also admits it’s a very challenging time in health care.
“It’s been a time in health care which I now know a lot about, like education, that has undergone extraordinary change and extraordinary consolidation and just the headwinds are remarkable,” says Lynch.
You can hear 939 the Eagle host Fred Parry’s full interview with President Lynch here.
