As St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center was underway with its 2015 merger with Michigan’s Trinity Health, it faced a C-suite decision of its own.
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As St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center was underway with its 2015 merger with Michigan's Trinity Health, it faced a C-suite decision of its own.
St. Francis is now the flagship hospital of a regional system called Trinity-Health New England, which also includes St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, Johnson Memorial in Stafford Springs, and Springfield's Mercy Medical Center.
“We thought when we formed the Trinity region that we needed an office space,” said Trinity-Health New England CEO Christopher Dadlez.
St. Francis decided to renovate the top floor (11,124 square feet) of its Gengras building — part of its Woodland Street campus — into executive offices for the newly formed system. “We already owned it, so we didn't have to pay for space and it wasn't an exorbitant expense, so we just renovated it,” Dadlez said.
There are eight executives in the space, including Trinity's human-resources chief, who moved his office from Springfield.
St. Francis has also been fortunate with parking. About a year ago, a donor gave the hospital a tract of nearby land, allowing it to consolidate several parking leases. Employees now park at the Homestead Avenue lot and are shuttled to the hospital.
While its executive team is headquartered on campus, Trinity-Health New England is looking for office space in the region to house the consolidated business office functions of its five hospitals.
Dadlez wouldn't reveal where the system is looking or how many employees might move, but he said the space (30,000 square feet) would be centrally located. Some business office employees were bumped by the Gengras renovations.
In addition, it may give the opportunity for Trinity-Health New England to provide bill collection and other “revenue cycle” services, to other hospitals in the broader Trinity system, Dadlez said.
