Saint Francis hospitals excel for corporation
The chief executive officer of Tenet Healthcare Corp. on Tuesday cited performance of the forprofit company’s hospitals in Memphis and Bartlett as examples of growth while nationally hospital stays have declined.
Saint Francis HospitalMemphis and St. Francis Hospital-Bartlett are two of 49 hospitals, among other health care businesses run by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare.
For its second quarter that ended June 30, the company reported a net loss of $50 million, or 49 cents per share, compared to a net loss or $6 million, or 6 cents per share, for the same quarter last year.
In an earnings conference call, Tenet Healthcare chief executive officer Trevor Fetter pointed to lower-than- expected demand for inpatient hos- pital care as a challenge. Inpatient admissions for the quarter fell 2.5 percent, although outpatient admissions rose 2.9 percent. The company forecast that its inpatient volume for 2013 will fall 2 percent to 4 percent, slashing a previous prediction of zero to 0.5 percent growth.
Pointing to bright spots of growth, he included the firm’s hospital in Bartlett and its Memphis hospital among them as examples of veteran facilities bucking the national trend.
While Saint FrancisMemphis is in East Memphis on Park Avenue, Fetter appeared to place it Downtown. “We’re also growing in Memphis, where we are adding capacity for the third time at our nine-year-old suburban hospital and where our 40-year- old downtown hospital is generating one of the top volume increases in the company this year,” he said.