Providence to shutter outpatient labs at multiple California hospitals

Providence has announced it will close its outpatient service line across a number of its California hospitals, including in the North Bay, effective March 18.

The health care system stated the decision was made “following a thorough assessment,” but declined to provide further details about went into the decision, and how affected patients will be financially impacted. Those details will be shared before the mid-March date, according to a Providence spokesperson.

“This change will help us focus on our strengths of delivering care and partnering with other organizations whose primary business is lab services,” the company statement said. “We did not enter into this decision lightly and are confident that other providers of these services will be able to support our community’s future needs in all our Northern California service areas, including Napa, Sonoma and Humboldt counties.”

The Renton, Washington-based health care system’s hospitals in the North Bay include Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Petaluma Valley Hospital and Healdsburg Hospital. The health care system declined to state which hospitals would be impacted, but the Napa Valley Register reported Queen of the Valley is one of those hospitals.

No jobs will be affected, according to the statement.

“All employees who support the outpatient lab service line at affected locations will be retained by Providence and continue working as Providence employees with no changes to their wages or benefits,” the statement said.

Providence said in the news release it will maintain several outpatient testing services at the affected acute care hospitals that support pathology, cytology, transfusions and hospital perioperative testing. It will also continue to provide inpatient and emergency department testing, as well as lab testing associated with its hospital outpatient departments’ patient care.

Providence operates six hospitals in Northern California and 11 in Southern California. The health care system also has hospitals in Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington.