Dive Brief:
- Springfield-based Baystate Health recently received approval from the Massachusetts Public Health Council to buy the 97-bed Noble Hospital. Baystate is the area's largest healthcare provider.
- Inpatient services will remain and Baystate will be adding more specialties from its Springfield location.
- Noble employs about 750 workers, including 100 unionized members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, whose contracts will be extended with the new ownership.
Dive Insight:
Although more specific details of the sale have yet to be revealed, this deal originally started as an affiliation that was announced in March—and it will leave Holyoke Medical Center as the only unaffiliated hospital in the Pioneer Valley.
Baystate has been in the news this month for doing a couple of small staffing cuts to help mitigate operating margins that weren't up to projections. The hospital announced that it will lay off 24 employees over the next 30 days, cut hours for an additional 17 workers and not fill 45 open positions. The jobs, the majority of which are at Baystate Medical Center, do not include bedside nurses and physicians—but do include clinical support, administrative jobs and 10 management positions.
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