Little Company of Mary Hospital to Cut Staff 12% : Health care: Torrance facility is not the first to use layoffs to counter shorter patient stays and a growing emphasis on outpatient treatment.

A collective shiver ran through the South Bay medical community this week with news of a 12% staff cut at one of the area’s largest medical centers.

Blaming sweeping changes in the health-care industry, Little Company of Mary Hospital of Torrance announced Wednesday that it is laying off 75 people, cutting hours or changing the jobs of 98 other employees and consolidating some departments.

Although the layoffs are among the largest reported at any South Bay hospital in recent years, administrators at other facilities report that they, too, have been shaving staff with layoffs and hiring freezes.

They characterize the Little Company layoffs as simply the latest symptom of the endemic problems hospitals face as they confront shorter patient stays, a shift toward outpatient care and stingier insurance reimbursements.

Several officials recalled the news three weeks ago that the West Coast’s largest private hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, expects to slash 700 positions this year. Long Beach Memorial Medical Center has also cut hundreds of jobs.

“It’s gotten to the point where there are almost no hospitals that have remained intact,” said David Langness, spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California. “Just about every hospital that we talk to has had layoffs, an early retirement program, hiring freeze, a cutback in one way or another.”

The Little Company layoffs come as part of a cost-containment plan intended to cut $8.2 million from its $94.1-million operating budget.

The staff at the 374-bed Catholic, nonprofit hospital will number 825 after the cuts.

The cuts will include some managers and nurses as well as dietary, engineering, clerical and technical workers.

The hospital will continue to offer the same services, hospital officials said in a statement.

In the past, Little Company has won kudos for its employee policies, with Working Mother magazine lauding it last fall as one of the 100 best U.S. companies for women because of such practices as subsidized day care.

Hospital President Mark Costa said in a statement that the hospital has an “excellent staff and it is difficult to have to go through this process.”

Since 1990 the hospital had already shrunk its staff by 10% through various means, including a small number of layoffs, Costa said in an interview.

No single cause precipitated the new cuts, Costa said.

“We’ve just had a dramatic decrease in the length of stay in recent months, and a minor decrease in admissions,” he said.

Due to such factors as cost-conscious managed-care plans, an emphasis on outpatient care and technology that speeds visits, patients are spending less time in hospitals.

Little Company reported that its average length of stay for inpatients fell from almost five days in 1992 to less than four days in 1993.

Meanwhile, the drop in admissions could be linked to the new push toward outpatient services as well as the ailing South Bay economy, Costa said.

In recent years, smaller rounds of layoffs have occurred at such hospitals as Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood; Torrance Memorial Medical Center, South Bay Hospital in Redondo Beach and Memorial Hospital of Gardena.

Some hospitals, however, have since resumed hiring.

Less than a month ago, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Harbor City laid off seven people when it eliminated 33 positions; the remaining employees were transferred to other jobs within Kaiser.

Several hospital officials wistfully recalled when, just a few years ago, a health-care specialty virtually guaranteed a job.

Said Larry Peterson, South Bay Hospital’s chief operating officer: “A lot of people got into health care because they thought it was a secure place to work. It definitely is a different environment.”