{"id":163589,"date":"2025-12-02T05:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T05:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/163589\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T05:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T05:44:07","slug":"portland-long-term-acute-care-hospital-will-shutter-lay-off-310-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/163589\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland long-term acute care hospital will shutter, lay off 310 employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vibra Healthcare, which operates Oregon\u2019s sole long-term acute care hospital<\/a> in Portland, plans to shut down operations early next year and lay off its entire workforce of 310 employees.<\/p>\n

In a Monday notice<\/a> to state labor officials, the company said it plans to permanently close Vibra Specialty Hospital of Portland in early February, citing \u201congoing financial challenges that have made it unsustainable to continue operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Kerr, the hospital\u2019s chief executive officer, said the imminent closure is \u201ca major blow\u201d to the region\u2019s already-strained continuum of care. He said the organization has stopped taking in new patients at the 73-bed facility.<\/p>\n

Kerr said long-term acute care hospitals like Vibra serve medically complex patients \u2014 those who have survived major trauma, neurological events, prolonged ventilator use, severe infections or complicated postoperative recoveries. They sit between traditional hospitals \u2014 like Oregon Health & Science University, Providence and Legacy \u2014 and rehabilitation centers, offering longer stays and highly specialized care.<\/p>\n

The closure will wipe out a broad range of clinical positions, including 95 registered nurses, 41 certified nursing assistants, 23 licensed practical nurses and 22 respiratory therapists. Several leadership roles \u2014 among them the chief clinical officer, chief executive officer and multiple department directors \u2014 will also be eliminated.<\/p>\n

Kerr said Vibra will be discharging patients to skilled nursing homes, inpatient care hospitals and home health care settings over the next 60 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see highly complex patients that cross the gamut of multi-specialties who need to be transferred out for more care after getting treatment from general acute hospitals like OHSU and Providence,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause some of their patients have to stay longer in specialized care settings, those hospitals send them out to us so they can open up more beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr said Vibra has taken in patients from hospitals from as far away as Medford, Klamath Falls and Boise. He said the nearest other long-term acute care hospitals are in Seattle, Boise and Redding, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur closure is not great for patients who are very complex and need intensive care after major hospitalizations or undergoing cancer treatment,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s also going to get worse for hospitals that need relief to open up beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr attributed the hospital\u2019s financial strain to flat insurer reimbursements, rising operational costs and a surge in prior-authorization denials that increasingly block general acute hospitals from discharging eligible patients to long-term acute care settings, disrupting both patient flow and revenue.<\/p>\n

Vibra Healthcare, a privately held company based in Mechanicsburg, Pa., purchased the former Woodland Park Hospital<\/a> in 2006 and reopened it two years later as Vibra Specialty Hospital of Portland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vibra Healthcare, which operates Oregon\u2019s sole long-term acute care hospital in Portland, plans to shut down operations early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-163589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}