Vibra Healthcare, which operates Oregon’s sole long-term acute care hospital in Portland, plans to shut down operations early next year and lay off its entire workforce of 310 employees.
In a Monday notice to state labor officials, the company said it plans to permanently close Vibra Specialty Hospital of Portland in early February, citing “ongoing financial challenges that have made it unsustainable to continue operations.”
Michael Kerr, the hospital’s chief executive officer, said the imminent closure is “a major blow” to the region’s already-strained continuum of care. He said the organization has stopped taking in new patients at the 73-bed facility.
Kerr said long-term acute care hospitals like Vibra serve medically complex patients — those who have survived major trauma, neurological events, prolonged ventilator use, severe infections or complicated postoperative recoveries. They sit between traditional hospitals — like Oregon Health & Science University, Providence and Legacy — and rehabilitation centers, offering longer stays and highly specialized care.
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 — among them the chief clinical officer, chief executive officer and multiple department directors — will also be eliminated.
Kerr said Vibra will be discharging patients to skilled nursing homes, inpatient care hospitals and home health care settings over the next 60 days.
“We 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,” he said. “Because 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.”
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.
“Our closure is not great for patients who are very complex and need intensive care after major hospitalizations or undergoing cancer treatment,” he said. “It’s also going to get worse for hospitals that need relief to open up beds.”
Kerr attributed the hospital’s 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.
Vibra Healthcare, a privately held company based in Mechanicsburg, Pa., purchased the former Woodland Park Hospital in 2006 and reopened it two years later as Vibra Specialty Hospital of Portland.