Resources and Publications PDF Print E-mail

The groundbreaking research in the below reports have been an important part of bringing to light the increased corporatization and degrading quality of care and charity care of non-profit health care generally and Resurrection Health Care specifically.  

 

Report documents skewed pay policies at Resurrection Health Care
Executives pay themselves lavishly while workers are mired in poverty

Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has issued a new report documenting low wage levels that keep patient-support staff art Resurrection Health Care hospitals mired in poverty and unable to support their families.  Resurrection Health Care (RHC) is the second largest non-profit hospital system in the Chicago metropolitan area.  It encompasses eight hospitals, as well as nursing homes, home health services, and outpatient clinics.

Entitled Coming Up Short: Resurrection Health Care's Distorted Pay Priorities, the report depicts a starkly skewed pay structure in which the compensation of RHC hospital executives significantly exceeds national norms while the meager wages of patient-support staff (housekeepers, laundry and food service workers) fall far short of self-sufficiency standards in the Chicago area.  

pdf Get the full report

The record on Resurrection Health Care Hospital Quality 2007 (March 2007)Why does quality hospital care matter? 

Unlike healthcare workers, most of us don't think about hospital quality on a daily basis. But chances are great that at some point we or a loved one will be hospitalized - whether for a joyful event such as the birth of a child or for treatment of a serious injury or illness.

Study after study has shown that the choices hospitals make about where to allocate resources have a direct impact on patients' well being.

Resurrection Health Care is the second largest hospital chain in the Chicago metropolitan area. This report examines available measures of hospital quality to see how Resurrection Health Care compares to other hospitals in our region.

The information included in this report is provided to consumers as a starting point for making informed healthcare choices. It is based on data developed by government, healthcare purchasers and independent oversight groups. By choosing hospitals that invest in patient safety measures and by voicing concerns over quality problems to hospital management, educated consumers can play a significant role in improving quality care for themselves and for all patients.

pdf Get the full report

 

The High Price of Growth at Resurrection Health Care: Corporatization and the Decline of Quality Care (November 2005)

Executive Summary
In less than a decade, Resurrection Health Care has established itself as one of the largest and fastest-growing healthcare systems in the Chicago metropolitan area. Through a series of acquisitions a single community hospital has been transformed into a profi table chain of nine hospitals, earning more than a billion dollars in annual revenue and doubling its share of the health care market in the northwest Chicago area.  Resurrection's corporate management has made significant changes at these former community hospitals. As Resurrection has placed more emphasis on acquisitions, the percentage of revenues spent on bedside care has declined sharply. Nurses report that declining staffing levels, insufficient infection control practices, and inadequate equipment and supplies have made it increasingly difficult for them to safely care for patients.

Employees have repeatedly asked Resurrection management to meet with them to discuss their concerns. In March of 2005 hundreds of Resurrection nurses sent a joint letter to the Resurrection Health Care Board of Directors, asking the corporation to engage in a dialogue with nurses about improving health care quality at Resurrection hospitals. To date, eight months later, the nurses still have not received any reply.

AFSCME Council 31 researchers undertook a systematic examination of care at Resurrection hospitals. Information was collected from nurses throughout the Resurrection system and data from public records and quality oversight agencies was analyzed to uncover how corporate cutbacks are affecting care at the bedside. The findings are alarming...

pdf Get the Full Report

Congressional Letter 

In July of 2006, Twelve members of Congress from Illinois, including Senators Barack Obama and Richard Durbin, sent a letter to Resurrection CEO Joseph Toomey urgning him to engage his employees in a positive dialogue.

pdf See the letter

Open Letter to Resurrection Health Care

In 2005, over 2,000 Catholics in the Chicagoland area signed on to a letter to Resurrection Health Care asking them to: (1) Respect their workers' rights to organize; (2) Reinstate all fired union supporters; (3) Stop all anti-union activity; (4) Begin a dialogue with the employee organizing committee, HEART/AFSCME, to ensure a fair organizing process.

pdf See the letter  


A Failing Mission: The Decline of Charity Care at Resurrection Hospitals (January 2004)

Executive Summary
By any measure, the recent growth of Resurrection Health Care (RHC) is impressive. In little more than a decade, the corporation has become a dominant player in Chicago’s health sector. Its chain of eight local Catholic hospitals now produces annual revenue of more than a billion dollars.  But a closer look at Resurrection’s books reveals an unpleasant truth: RHC has built up its bottom line by denying charity care — free health services for patients who cannot pay —to Chicago residents who lack health insurance and the funds to cover spiraling out-of-pocket costs. This report reveals that since 2002, RHC has drastically reduced its provision of charity care to the uninsured and needy — in the process neglecting its historic, faith- and service-based mission.

pdf Get the Full Report

pdf In Spanish

Freedom of Association and Workers’ Rights Violations at Resurrection Health Care (August 2004)

Executive Summary
This study applies a human rights analysis to actions by Resurrection Health Care (RHC) management in response to employees’ efforts to exercise the right to freedom of association. Under international law, freedom of association encompasses the right to form trade unions and bargain collectively. These are fundamental human rights that must be respected by governments, employers, and unions.

Some of the actions of RHC management in its response to workers’ exercise of the right to form and join a union are consistent with human rights principles and obligations. However, some actions demonstrate a systematic pattern of interference with workers’ organizing rights and reflect a failure to meet human rights principles and obligations.

Focusing on union rights rather than worker rights is management’s basis for launching an aggressive campaign of interference against RHC workers’ organizing efforts. Management asserts that it is battling the union, not battling its own employees. However, workers are the ones who suffer management harassment, intimidation, spying, threats and other violations of rights recognized under international human rights law.

pdf Get the Full Report

pdf In Spanish

The Care Gap: Unequal Treatment of the Uninsured at Resurrection Hospitals (May 2005)

Executive Summary
More than a year ago, A Failing Mission: The Decline of Charity Care at Resurrection Hospitals sparked community outcry. The report revealed how Resurrection Health Care (RHC), departing from its historic mission to serve the poor, adopted a restrictive corporate policy that denied charity care, financial aid without expectation of payment, to patients in need.   As a result, RHC's charity care to the poor and uninsured was dramatically cut at a time of record profits. RHC has vigorously resisted independent review of its practices and its callous charity care policy remains largely unchanged.  New research provides evidence that the corporation's unfair treatment of the poor begins inside the hospital by denying uninsured patients' access to medical care, and continues outside as RHC limits charity care, inflates charges and uses aggressive debt collection tactics.  This report brings to light new evidence that as Resurrection adopted new business practices, separate and unequal standards of care were established for patients who can not afford to pay.

pdf Get the Full Report


Uncharitable? (December 2004)

The New York Times published this article by Jonathan Cohn detailing the decline of charity care among non-profit hospitals in the Chicago area.

pdf Read the full article



 
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