Statement from Trinity Health on Stewarding Resources During the COVID-19 Health Emergency

Trinity Health’s priority is the care and safety of the patients, colleagues, clinicians and communities it serves. Trinity Health announced it is implementing strong measures to ensure it has the resources needed to support front-line care during the historic COVID-19 global health crisis. Overall, the measures focus on safety, care delivery and stewardship.

Hospitals and health systems around the world are leading the local response. Like many health systems across the country, Trinity Heath hospitals and outpatient clinics are seeing the number of COVID-19 cases rise significantly every day, and it is straining the organization's capacity – particularly for hospitals in highly populated areas. Trinity Health has worked diligently to expand our surge capacity, including:

• Doing everything possible to get personal protective equipment to caregivers on the front line;
• Increasing staffing, beds and ventilators in hospitals;
• Expanding telehealth visits with physicians; and
• Expanding lab testing and turnaround.

"This pandemic has created a serious disruption to Trinity Health's operations, colleagues, and the people we serve," said Michael A. Slubowski, FACHE, FACMPE, president and chief executive officer, Trinity Health.

“Outpatient and home care services represent a large portion of health system's revenues and they are decreasing significantly. This is understandable because of orders by state and federal governments to stop elective surgeries – and because many healthy patients are unable to visit the doctor at this time. However, more needs to be implemented in order to be fully prepared to meet the needs of communities during this pandemic,” Slubowski said.

In an effort to control spending, fully prepare and reallocate resources to support hospitals and clinicians on the front line during this health crisis, Trinity Health is taking the following steps:

• Discretionary spending has been reduced and all capital expenditures have been frozen except for those supporting local hospitals during this crisis.
• All senior leaders, vice presidents and above, are taking 15 to 25 percent pay reductions, effective next week. President and CEO Mike Slubowski is taking a 50 percent pay reduction.
• Available colleagues, who are qualified to fill needed roles, will be redeployed to different roles and locations across the system.
• While the vast majority of Trinity Health's 125,000 colleagues will continue to work full-time – either in their existing roles or in redeployed roles – the organization is currently working on plans to implement furloughs in the coming weeks for some colleagues who do not have work that is directly related to the most critical needs during this pandemic.

“Our mission calls us to ensure we remain viable during and after this pandemic, and our communities are depending on us," Slubowski said.

About Trinity Health

Trinity Health is one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation, serving diverse communities that include more than 30 million people across 22 states. Trinity Health includes 92 hospitals, as well as 106 continuing care locations that include PACE programs, senior living facilities and home care and hospice services. Its continuing care programs provide nearly 2.5 million visits annually. Based in Livonia, Michigan, and with annual operating revenues of $19.3 billion and assets of $27 billion, the organization returns $1.2 billion to its communities annually in the form of charity care and other community benefit programs. Trinity Health employs about 125,000 colleagues, including about 7,500 employed physicians and clinicians. For more information, visit www.trinity-health.org. You can also follow us on Facebook or Twitter.