All patient care at the Jewish Hospital in Avondale will stop in mid-November, officials announced Monday.
The move will eliminate 351 hospital beds from ''Pill Hill'' and save about $50 million in hospital spending over the next five years. Yet the closing will not cause any layoffs. And no significant problems with access to medical services are expected.
''People have been saying for years that there are too many hospitals on Pill Hill. We think this demonstrates some leadership in this community in addressing the true capacity issues,'' said Jack Cook, president and CEO of the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati. ''Some of our competitors have taken a swallow from this cup, but they haven't taken much of a drink.''
Most of the medical services now performed at the Avondale site will be moved to the Jewish Hospital at Kenwood on East Galbraith Road, where a $45 million expansion is nearly complete.
The rest will be divided among other members of the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, which includes Christ, University and the St. Luke hospitals.
Most workers in Avondale will be transferred to Kenwood. But about 350 employees will be offered jobs at other alliance hospitals. No layoffs are expected because the alliance has more than 700 job openings.
The Avondale site, at 3200 Burnet Ave., will become an administrative and support headquarters for the alliance and will continue to employ about 1,000 people. The single biggest of several functions will be the alliance's centralized laboratory services, which employ about 700.
Of the 1 million square feet of space at the Avondale site, about 450,000 square feet will be left vacant. Some older buildings may eventually be demolished, but the health alliance does not plan to sell any of the Avondale site.
At a press conference Monday, executives described the move as a strategic step that meets three goals at the same time: It responds to constant cost-cutting pressure; it improves service to the Tristate's growing suburban population; and it keeps the nation's oldest Jewish hospital open, if not in the same location.
''We simply could not sustain care at both the Kenwood and Burnet locations,'' Mr. Cook said.
Closing patient services at Jewish Hospital in Avondale will mean patients will have to find someplace else to handle more than 14,000 emergency visits, 9,000 inpatient admissions and 46,500 outpatient visits a year.
But the concentration of hospitals known as Pill Hill has so much overcapacity that closing an entire hospital is not expected to disrupt medical services.
Warren Falberg, senior executive officer for the Jewish Hospitals, predicted that 60 percent of emergency visits and up to 90 percent of clinical visits will be rerouted to the expanded Kenwood campus.
As for the rest, there are eight other acute-care hospitals within a few miles of the Avondale campus: University, Christ, Good Samaritan, Bethesda Oak, Deaconess, the VA Medical Center, Shriners Burns Institute and Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Most of the other adult hospitals on Pill Hill have been running at about half-capacity, or less, Mr. Cook said.
''I don't expect many patients to lose access to care. There's still a huge amount of activity on Pill Hill. It's not going to go away,'' said Lynn Olman, president of the Greater Cincinnati Hospital Council.
Jewish Hospital becomes the first full-service Tristate hospital to close in Greater Cincinnati since Our Lady of Mercy in Mariemont shut its doors in 1989. The move reflects the biggest change to be announced since the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati and its rival, TriHealth, formed two years ago.
Other recent downsizing moves include plans announced this year to downsize and restructure Bethesda Oak hospital and the closing of the Emerson A. North psychiatric hospital in 1994.
The only big question about the closing of Jewish Hospital in Avondale has been when it would happen. Major changes have been expected since the hospital agreed to join the Health Alliance in May 1995.
''I think this is pretty much in keeping with the trend of hospitals moving services out to the suburbs... that's where the patients are,'' Mrs. Olman said. ''And I don't think this will be the end of it. Not by a long shot.''
Tristate hospital groups, which also include the older Mercy and Franciscan hospital systems, have just begun consolidating medical services. Most changes made so far have involved support services, such as laboratory, pharmacy, record-keeping, purchasing and administration.
In the next few years, expect local hospital groups to establish centers for certain types of care, such as cancer care or cardiology, instead of each hospital trying to provide a full range of services.
The scale of that change will be significant.
''Since we formed the health alliance, we've taken out about $70 million in (annual) costs,'' Mr. Cook said. ''We still need to get out another $80 million in the next two or three years.''
KENWOOD WARY OF CLOSING
