Beth Israel Lahey Health, the organization behind more than a dozen New England hospitals, said Friday that hospitals across its system were laying off an unspecified number of workers.
A spokesperson for the system declined to say which facilities were losing jobs, nor the type of roles they were cutting.
“Like healthcare providers across the country, BILH is facing significant cost increases, a limited reimbursement environment and changing patient care trends,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “At the local level, hospital leaders have identified opportunities to restructure staff roles, including eliminating some positions, to best meet local health care needs in a sustainable way.”
The Massachusetts Nurses Association confirmed that Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Plymouth, Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, and Beverly Hospital had eliminated a handful of unionized nurses’ roles, though the laid-off nurses will be eligible for other open positions. The union also confirmed that 22 mid-level nurse managers at the Plymouth hospital were laid off; these employees were not represented by the union.
Beth Israel Lahey Health — a system that formed as the result of a 2019 merger — oversees more than 2,300 beds across 14 hospitals in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and New England Baptist Hospital in Boston and Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. According to its website, it has a workforce of 39,000 employees.
For the nine-month period ending in June 2024, Beth Israel Lahey reported a $110 million operating loss — meaning a shortfall of its revenue from operations to cover expenses — compared to a $141 million loss over the same period the year prior, according to the system’s most recent quarterly financial report.
For the hospital fiscal year ending in September 2022, Beth Israel Lahey hospitals accounted for 13.5 percent of emergency department visits in the state, and nearly a fifth of all discharges, according to the state Center for Health Information and Analysis.
The job cuts come amid a major shakeup for the health system as it embarks on building a new 300-bed, $1.68 billion cancer care center with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, following the latter’s breakup with longtime partner Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Jessica Bartlett of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.