Many SHARE members have been talking about UMass Memorial’s increasing focus on cost-savings, with questions about the hospital’s finances and why we need to cut costs. SHARE members are also implementing ideas which are already having a real impact on the hospital’s bottom line.
What’s Happening?
You may have seen the recent Financial Sustainability update from Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass Memorial Health, providing an overview the financial challenges faced by our hospital system, including a $25M loss at UMass Memorial Health in FY25.
Federal cuts to Medicaid are expected to have a substantial impact on our hospital’s budget, beginning in Fiscal Year 2027
Dr. Dickson’s message (from “The Thread” on October 9th), outlines measures to further address these issues in FY26, and to stem the projected impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on safety net hospitals like our own. Dr. Dickson also praised the work of UMass Memorial employees toward those cost savings through the Find the 4% initiative, an effort to re-calibrate hospital finances by enhancing revenue and decreasing spending throughout the system.
The federal government is currently shutdown over disagreement about Medicaid cuts for this year and their effect on Medicaid patients. Medicaid cuts planned for 2027 will have an even bigger impact on the UMass Memorial’s budget. Estimates vary on the impact of those cuts – one estimate is that the hospital would lose $100+ million.
For a more in-depth analysis, you can also listen to this interview with Dr. Dickson in The Commonwealth Beacon’s podcast, “The Codcast.”
How SHARE Members Are Responding
Recently, SHARE Unit Based Teams have turned some attention to the hospital’s “Finding 4%” campaign. UBTs give SHARE members opportunities to design the work in their own departments, and put SHARE members at the center of the decision-making about things that matter to them. The purpose of UBTs is to make it feel better to come to work, and to make it easier to be able to do work we can feel proud of. Here’s a glimpse of some of the UBT projects to “Find 4%”:
The above list names a number of UBT projects aimed at cutting costs, especially through cutting wasteful practices
Making the Difference in Your Department
A commonsense way to make things more efficient in your workplace is to look for things that are redundant or wasteful. Smoothing things out can make work feel better, too. To get the ideas going, here’s the guide that the SHARE-UMass Memorial Continuous Improvement Coaches use with their Unit Based Teams
